History Repeats Itself
by Digitallace
Summary: HP/DM slash.Draco steals a time turner and goes back to the time of his ancestors, finding his ancient relative in love with the Potter of that time. Can Draco avoid his new feelings toward Harry or is History destined to repeat itself?
1. It's All Fun and Games Until

Authors Note: This is a Time Travel fic (partial AU takes place as alternate 7th year ignoring book 6 & 7) I'm so excited to be working on another requested fic. As anyone who is reading Healing knows, it is coming to an end (I finished the last chapters last week) and so this and another story (Alluring Lullaby) are taking it's place in my writing schedule. This one is for GothicBlackRose (shannon) who has been one of my beta's on Burden of Memory. She requested a time travel fic, with a curse, so I present to you all this story: History Repeats Itself. Please enjoy!

Chapter 1 It's All Fun and Games Until…

It really was harder than I imagined possible.

I assumed getting the shining golden bauble she wore around her neck would be child's play, like taking candy from a baby. But this was more like taking meat from an enraged hippogriff.

The first attempt went bad before she even knew what hit her. The freezing spell I cast from behind her bounced right off like a rubber ball. She never even flinched. It infuriated me momentarily, but I had no intention of giving up _that _easily.

My next attack was in the library. It was her home turf, but I felt confident enough that I could trick it from her. I knew at some point she would have to take it off, and that was when I would strike, stealing it right from under her nose.

But she never took it off.

After weeks of watching her I began to wonder if she _ever_ took it off. She was probably odd enough to bathe with it and everything, which was when my final idea struck.

I stalked her habits for two weeks and eventually pinpointed the time when she went into the Prefect's bathroom each evening. Masking myself under a thick disillusionment charm I hid in one of the stalls and waited until I heard her arrive. I averted my eyes as she stripped, because lets be honest, I might be a Slytherin but I'm not a pervert.

I'm also not interested in Gryffindor's.

Finally I could taste my victory as I peered around the corner of the stall. Granger had removed her cloak and uniform and sitting on top of the pile was the glittering golden time turner.

I nearly squealed with delight, but I refrained, because Malfoy's don't squeal. After weeks of planning, chasing and failing, finally I had the coveted item within my nimble grasp. All I had to do was reach out and grab it.

I waited not so patiently for her to dip her frizzy brown hair beneath the surface, and the moment she did, I made my move, lifting the golden bauble from the clothes and slipping the chain around my pale neck.

It looked far better with my complexion than it ever did on _her_.

Absconding the time turner and knowing what to do with it were entirely different things. It took me almost another week to read up on it, all the while listening to Granger gripe to her friends in potions class about losing it in the first place. Apparently she had gotten it from McGonagall in order to attend more classes. I had always thought it was odd the way she kept popping up every now and then when no one seemed to notice her there a moment before, and now I knew exactly how she managed it.

Potter seemed unusually distracted but the Weasel always listened to her attentively, like a lovesick puppy waiting for her to give him a treat.

I wondered briefly what was bothering Potter, but then I quickly realized I didn't care.

Finally I knew how to work it and that Saturday afternoon, just after lunch, I tried it for the first time.

Thus becoming, Draco Malfoy, master of time.

--

I felt a little wobbly as I arrived in the past, sort of nauseas, like I had just gone swimming with an ear infection. Things rocked and spun around me, but eventually leveled off and I began to feel normal again.

I wondered briefly if it had worked, because I seemed to be standing in the exact same place as before. It was an empty unused classroom I had snuck into for privacy, and it looked identical.

It wasn't until I slipped out and began walking the halls that I realized for certain it had worked. Hogwarts was mostly the same, only about a hundred years cleaner. Some of the portraits and tapestries were different, but it was easily recognizable as my school, only in another time.

Professors I had only seen in archived papers and wall portraits passed by me, not even sparing a second glace, the students too seemed indifferent to my presence. I thought for a moment that they couldn't see me, until I bumped into one of them and watched as they skittered away apologizing.

I rounded a corner as I approached the Great Hall and came to a sudden stop. Just ten meters away was _me_, only _not_ me. He looked like me, even had the same noble voice and captivating presence, but clearly it wasn't me.

"Rion, did you finish your potions essay?" a small girl beside him asked. The boy she called Rion, the one who looked just like me nodded curtly.

"Of course," he scoffed, as if it were the most ignorant question he had ever heard, and maybe it was.

He turned toward me then, as if he could feel my presence, and I had to duck behind the wall. I cast a heavy disillusionment charm and got closer, careful not to let anyone bump me or else my cover would be blown.

I peered over his shoulder and looked at a parchment he had sitting on top of his books. It was addressed to O. Malfoy and I knew instantly who the person in front of me was.

This boy standing in front of me, the one who looked like my clone was my great, great, grandfather Orion Malfoy.

I couldn't believe the uncanny resemblance as I watched him interact with the other Slytherin students. I felt like I was looking into a mirror. It was no wonder the students I passed before never spared me a second glance.

His hair was the same shade of platinum blonde, cropped short in the back but long on the top and front. He was the same height and build, his face just as sharp and handsome. I'm not bragging, I'm just being honest. The only clear difference between us was his eyes. They had gray in them, but they weren't the solid steel color of mine, instead they were blue, almost icy in color.

His hand hovered over the parchment, and tensed slightly, as if he wanted to crush it. It seemed I was right in my assessment too, because the minute he turned from his friends, he made a tight fist, smashing the parchment into a ball and heaving into a nearby rubbish bin.

I ran straight to it and lifted the parchment from the top of the pile, slowly unfolding it and reading the letter sent from my third great grandfather to my second. Rigel Malfoy wrote to his son in the same curt and emotionless tones that my father wrote to me.

It was apparently more of an inherent trait than I had ever really acknowledged before that. I could easily imagine that the letter was intended for me, a hundred years from now. I wasn't sure whether to be sad or proud that my family hadn't changed at all in such a long period of time.

_Dear Orion, _

_I'm writing today to tell you of your future. A bride has finally been selected from several prestigious families, all of them wishing to merge with our family for obvious reasons. Her name is Isabella, and she is the youngest daughter of the Greengrass family. They tried to pawn off the eldest, but Isabella is the lovelier of the two and I thought you would appreciate this gesture._

_The wedding has been arranged for two weeks after your graduation from Hogwarts. We shall see you over Holiday to discuss the details. I trust your mother will have everything chosen to her liking by then._

_Yours,_

_R. Malfoy_

I read it once more before stuffing it into my robe pocket, wondering what about it had angered Orion. I was fully expecting a letter of my own just like it any day now. My father made me aware over the summer that negotiations for my future wife had already begun. Surely Rigel had told his son the same.

Even before the summer I knew what was expected of me. I was to marry the bride of my father's choosing, produce and heir and follow in the family business of importing and exporting dark artifacts. It was almost a relief to have things so completely planned out for me. No decisions to worry over, nothing to keep me up at night.

It was the way things had always been within the Malfoy family, and one day I would make all the decisions for my own son, allowing him to focus on his studies instead of planning his advancement into society.

It was a proven system.

Which made me wonder, why Orion was so angry about it.

I decided at once that I wanted to find out, so I tried to find him, slipping down toward the dungeons assuming he had gone back to his dorm. That was what I would have done if I were angry about something. He wouldn't want to be disturbed, and it wasn't as if I could approach him and say 'Hello, I'm Draco Malfoy, your great, great grandson. What's bothering you?'

I did think that perhaps, if I watched him long enough, that I might be able to figure it out on my own though. I slipped into the Slytherin common room, which also looked exactly the same, behind a couple of giggling girls.

I went the same way I would to my own dorm, the prefects had private quarters and I assumed that if I was prefect, than any relative of mine surely would have been as well. As soon as I slipped into the room though, I was caught by surprise.

Orion wasn't there, but someone else was, and as the light shone on his face, lighting up his sun kissed skin I knew at once who it was.

Banishing the disillusionment charm I walked right up to him. "Potter, what in Merlin's name are you doing here? How did you follow me?" I demanded.

Potter looked confused and stuttered slightly. "Your letter told me to meet you here," he replied nervously, stashing a silvery bit of cloth behind him.

"My note?" I asked curiously before the world spun me on my head and it all clicked into place. If I had an ancestor here, why couldn't Potter? It appeared he had been tormenting my family for centuries. "I'll be right back," I said quickly, running to the door and casting my disillusionment charm the moment I was on the other side of it.

I waited there by the door for no more than a minute before Orion walked toward me. I slipped into the room behind him, eager to know what scheme he had going that brought Potter down to his room. The Potter of his time must have been completely witless to come unsupervised to the Slytherin dungeons. I wondered briefly if there was anything I could say that would get _my_ Potter down to my room, but I doubted it. He was nothing if not cautious of me, as well it should be.

I looked at Potter then, _really_ looked at him, and wondered how in Merlin's name I could have confused him for Harry. The general look was there, messy black hair, same facial structure, same height and build. This Potter obviously played Quidditch too, because he was muscular in the same places as my Potter. Though the Potter of this time also wore glasses, _his_ actually fit, and behind them were not the green orbs of my Potter, but rather a dark hazel.

The most obvious thing though, was despite the fring covering his forehead, it was obvious that this Potter had no famous scar.

Still, seeing him standing beside Orion was a startling sight.

"I'm glad you were able to come, Edward," Orion said to the Potter imposter.

Edward nodded quickly and took a step closer, pulling out the shimmering silver fabric he had been holding when I spoke to him. "I can go anywhere with this, you know that," he whispered.

I looked closer and nearly slapped myself in the forehead. Of course, he had an invisibility cloak. It would explain plenty of Harry's shenanigans and I would bet ten galleons that he had inherited it from Edward Potter.

Orion smiled, yes _smiled_ at Edward. I was still waiting for the evil plot to surface, but it didn't seem to be there. "I got the letter," Orion whispered, his smile immediately turning into a frown.

Edward's eyes went wide but eventually he nodded "Who?" he asked.

"Isabella Greengrass," Orion replied with a sour face.

Edward closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them there were unshed tears. "How long do we have?" he asked softly, running hands up and down his arms as if to warm himself.

Orion pulled Edward into a hug and I think I threw up in my mouth a little. "Hush," he cooed. "It'll be alright. We have the rest of the year to think of something."

"When?" Edward choked out.

"Two weeks after I graduate," Orion replied reluctantly.

"I thought we'd have longer. I thought… I thought we would at least have a little time after school," Edward sobbed a tearless cry.

"I know, but we'll think of something. Maybe I can tell father that I want to go abroad and study for a few years," he offered and I was so confused.

Edward nodded and smiled slightly, obviously not appeased, but trying to pretend. Then the worst happened, the most unimaginable thing. It was so unexpected that I didn't have time to try and disassociate myself from the forms in front of me. It was so hard not to think of it as myself talking to Potter… until they kissed.

I wanted to hurl myself at them and ask what in Merlin's name they thought they were doing. They were mortal enemies. Malfoy and Potter, Slytherin and Gryffindor, boy and boy. It wasn't right, it wasn't possible, but as their mouths danced in perfect harmony I realized that it wasn't the first time.

They had been kissing for a long time, weeks, months, years, I had no idea, but I knew that this wasn't a first kiss I was witnessing. I watched, eyes glued to the scene and unable to look away. It was like a train wreck. They groped and fondled and began removing clothes and I panicked.

No longer was I an innocent bystander in situation of potential teasing and torment, no, this was altogether different. They seemed to… _love_ each other, and if I didn't get out of here fast I was going to find out exactly how much.

I silently groaned to myself at my horrible luck. My first look at gay porn was going to be a live show, featuring a relative that looked uncannily like me and my own worst enemy.

As they fell naked onto Orion's bed I averted my eyes, trying to block out images of myself and Potter in the same position, and trying to ignore the sounds of licking, sucking and moaning coming from the bed behind me.

I wanted to run, to wretch and to never see another boy shower after Quidditch practice again. I took a deep breath and thought about it, the time turner glimmered around my neck, and I was in my own room. If I concentrated hard enough, I could calculate this exact same moment in my own time and be free of this nightmare.

Taking the time turner carefully into my hand I changed the dial to decades and spun it ten full turns, then deftly switched it to hours and turned it back one, so it would seem as if I had never gone at all.

The world shifted around me and the sounds of sexual pleasure no longer accosted my ears. I opened my eyes and I had been successful in my attempt. I was sitting in the center of the floor in my room, hopefully in the right time.

--

Authors Note: Okay, for this story I will give out a time turner and a Draco clone to all reviewers.


	2. Perception is Reality

Authors Note: This fic was written for and beta'ed by my lovely friend Shannon. It's swiftly becoming one of my favorites to write.

Chapter 2 Perception is Reality

I sighed my relief into the open air. Standing outside in the courtyard--_my_ time's courtyard-- never felt so right.

I couldn't help but be happy to be back in my own time where things were normal. A time when the portraits were in the right place, when Slytherin's knew their duty and, most importantly. a time when I didn't have sex with Potter.

I know it wasn't _actually_ me, but it might as well have been. It certainly sounded like me and looked like me, it probably even tasted like me, but that brought up a whole different crop of things I wasn't ready to think about.

A flash of silver light caught my eye as I looked toward the lake, but it was gone the next moment. I trained my eyes harder at the spot and saw it again and grimaced at my returned bad luck.

It had to be stupid Potter under his stupid invisibility cloak.

I sighed and turned to leave, but something caught my attention. It sounded almost like crying; quiet sobs wafting through the breeze and carried directly to my ear. I tried to ignore it but images of Orion comforting Edward made me pause and walk slowly toward the source of the sound.

I have no idea why I went to him, no clue why I even cared, I just felt like I _had_ to. No one else was around, his friends were probably off snogging one another and it didn't seem as though Potter every really talked to anyone besides those two.

Having no idea how to even begin a conversation with my arch nemesis and oldest rival, I decided not to. I just found the place where I suspected him to be and sat down beside it.

It seemed like he was leaning against a gnarled tree, though maybe he had left the moment he saw me approaching, because all was silent when I sat down. I suspected he was still there though, just being quiet, and probably hoping I would go away. _I_ was hoping I would go away, in fact I continually willed myself to do so, but my body wasn't listening to me. Go figure.

We sat there for a while in silence, or maybe it was just me sitting alone in silence. The ground wasn't terribly comfortable, but I could see why Potter came out here; the view was magnificent. We were raised just slightly over the courtyards below on a grassy hillock and the entire vista of Hogwarts spread out before us on one side, and the vast shimmer lake on the other. It really was the perfect spot to sit and think, or even sit and cry I suppose.

"If you want to be alone, just tell me to shove off. I just thought… well, I don't know what I thought exactly, but if you want to talk, I'm here," I said at last, probably to the wind.

I might have been mistaken, but I swore I heard a scoff of mocking laughter. It was most likely just me imagining the boy's probable response.

"I know it sounds ridiculous, it certainly does to me," I added.

"How did you even know I was out here?" Potter replied.

It was odd talking to thin air, but even odder talking to Potter. "I heard you."

"Brilliant, now I suppose you can run along and tell all of your Slytherin mates all about the great Harry Potter's breakdown," he muttered.

"I'm not going to do that, didn't you just hear me?" I huffed. I was already getting tired of this and desperately wanted to get away and pretend it never happened.

"I heard you, but what am I supposed to think? The icy cold Draco Malfoy has a sudden change of heart and has decided to befriend a blood traitor?" Harry spat.

I only shrugged. How was I supposed to explain it to him when I could hardly explain it to myself?

"So then, why me?" he asked, tentatively, as if not sure he wanted the answer. I wasn't sure I did either.

"I wish I knew," I muttered.

Harry chuckled and it didn't sound sarcastic, or mocking, it sounded like a genuine laugh and my heart warmed. It was disgusting. "So what, some higher being told you to come and comfort me? Did Merlin visit you in your dreams?" Harry asked, sounding cheered.

"If you're going to tease me, maybe I should just go," I huffed. I didn't need to take this behavior from the Gryffindor Golden Boy. I made a move to leave and an invisible hand stopped me.

"Are you really going to keep all this quiet?" Harry asked.

I nodded. "I have nothing to gain by telling anyone." That was true enough; I was already the king of Slytherin, having either respect or fear from everyone in my house. Potter's tale of a sobbing hero would do me no great service.

"No one would believe you," he tried to convince me, but I only laughed.

"_Everyone_ would believe me. Gryffindor's are notoriously emotional," I replied.

"So are Slytherin's emotion_less_, then?" Harry asked.

"Hardly--I have emotions; I'm just good at keeping them _inside_ where they _should_ be, not out in the open for my enemies to see and use against me," I replied, entirely unsure why I was telling him any of this.

"I do actually try, you know. It's not like I'm crying my woes in the common room or anything," Harry noted.

That was true. He wasn't telling the world all about what made him upset, milking the onslaught of sympathy for all it was worse like I would have expected him to do, still. "I've noticed something off for a few weeks though."

"Have you been watching me?" Harry asked sounding amused.

I, on the other hand, was not amused. Had I been watching him? Not any more then usual, which made me realize that I _did_ usually watch him. But then, he was my enemy, of course I watched him. I needed to know things about Potter in order to best him. "It's hard not to when you sit in front of me in almost every class, Potter," I replied.

Potter slipped the invisibility cloak from around him and bunched it in his lap. It had messed up his already messy raven hair, but he didn't bother trying to smooth it. Obviously he realized the gesture would be useless. He pushed up his glasses with one finger and looked at me with him penetrating green eyes.

How I ever mistook his ancestor for him I'll never know. Their eyes alone were a telling story, not to mention the jagged white scar on his forehead. Talking to air had been embarrassing, talking to an invisible Potter was unsettling, but talking to _actual _Potter, was just wrong.

"Do you think you could put that thing back on?" I asked.

The corner of his mouth curled into a subtle smile. "Do my looks offend you?"

"No… er, yes, I mean not in the way you're probably thinking up, yes. I just…" I stammered, knowing I sounded like a fool, but for some reason found myself completely unable to do anything about it. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It was easier to talk to you when I could pretend it wasn't you."

"That's hardly fair. I've been able to see you the entire time," Harry complained.

"Fine," I said and muttered the disillusionment charm I had been using quite a bit that day already. Now I was invisible and Potter wasn't, at least not until he threw the cloak back over himself.

We were just two invisible boys having a conversation by the lake. "You're right, this is better. Now I can just pretend you're Ron," he said with a laugh.

I made a face even though he couldn't see me. "I'd rather you didn't."

Harry laughed again and I was thrilled at the idea that it was all for me. I wanted to slap myself.

"Okay then, you can be Hermione," Harry chuckled.

"Just so you know, I'm rolling my eyes. I know you can't see me, so I thought I'd narrate," I informed him.

I seemed to be a natural at cheering Potter up, because he couldn't seem to contain his laughter around me. "How about Neville, then?" he asked.

"How about not," I replied, grimacing invisibly.

"Seamus?" he suggested.

"Do I have an accent?" I asked.

"Ginny?" he tried again.

"Do I suddenly have tits?" I complained.

"I don't know. I can't see you," he laughed.

"Well, I don't," I huffed.

"Okay then, how about Fred or George?" he offered.

"Do you have any friends _without_ red hair?" I teased.

He was silent for a moment then laughed. "They are certainly the minority."

"Well, I won't be a redhead, just to narrow it down for you," I scoffed.

"How about McGonagall?" he asked.

"Why do you keep trying to turn me into a girl?" I asked incredulously.

Potter chuckled. "Well, you are quite pretty," he said at last and I paled under my disillusionment charm. Did Potter just call me pretty? Was Potter flirting with me?

No, it couldn't be. I was just reading things into it because of the traumatizing events I witnesses earlier.

I cleared my throat and searched for some way to change the subject. "How about Snape? I could be Snape."

"I wouldn't talk to Snape," Harry grumbled.

"But then yesterday you wouldn't have talked to me either. Things change apparently," I said, and much to my dismay it seemed to be true.

"Nothing could possibly happen that would make me talk to Snape," Harry huffed.

"So what happened to make you talk to me?" I asked.

"Technically you're talking to me. It's not as though _I_ sought _you_ out," Harry corrected.

I rolled my eyes. "I didn't seek you out. If you hadn't been sobbing out in the open I would have gladly left you alone," I told him.

"You can go any time," Harry replied.

"I know," I said with a huff, but made no attempt to leave.

"Sirius," he blurted, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Pardon?"

"You could be Sirius," he amended.

"I am being serious," I replied, not understanding.

Harry laughed. "No, I mean Sirius Black. You could be him; I always used to talk to him about important things."

"Well, I suppose I could do worse than a Black, even if he was a blood traitor. Why would you be talking to him though? Didn't he kill your father's friend or something?" I asked. How the hell did Harry Potter end up with an Azkaban escapee as a confidant? It was no wonder he was so messed up.

Harry grew very quiet and when he finally spoke, his words came out in a hiss. "He was not a traitor and he didn't kill anyone. He was set up."

"And you know this how?" I asked.

"Because he's my godfather," he said surprisingly.

"How does Harry Potter end up with a Black, my own uncle in fact, for a godfather?" I asked, completely baffled.

"He was my dad's best friend," Harry replied.

"How didn't I know this?" I asked, more to myself than to Potter. How had I been so unaware of how closely laced my whole life was with Potters? It seemed he and I went back over a hundred years, and who knew, maybe even longer. And here I find out that our current lives are so tightly woven yet I knew nothing about it. If Sirius had raised Potter, then he and I would have grown up cousins.

My mother always liked Sirius, despite what my grandmother said, so I would have most likely seen Potter on holidays at the very least and we might have even been friends.

"I don't know, Malfoy. Maybe because your parents don't tell you things," Harry offered.

That was true enough, but I didn't like Potter saying it. I was told information on a need to know basis. Given my father's predilection for controversial decisions I liked it better that way, plausible deniability and all that. But this was different, or at least, it _seemed_ different now that I knew what had occurred in the past.

Did my father know about that? If so, then why would he insist I make friends with the boy on our first day of school? Was he testing me? It didn't seem like a risk my father would take, but then, how well did I know him?

"Malfoy?" Harry called out.

"Hm?" I answered distractedly.

"You've been quite for awhile. I thought you left," Harry said.

"Do you want me to?" I asked, not sure what I wanted his answer to be.

He didn't answer at all for a moment; finally I heard a faint 'no' and I smiled to myself.

Harry Potter actually enjoyed my company, who would have thought? I'm not sure why that idea made me so happy, but it did.

"So if you're Sirius, then who am I?" he asked, breaking my train of thought.

"Well, since you were so set on making me a girl, I think you'll be Pansy," I said haughtily.

"Ew," he groaned, but surprisingly made no complaint or protest.

"You're not going to argue?" I asked.

"Did you want me to?" Harry chuckled.

"No, but I expected you to," I corrected.

"I'm not sure you know enough about me to expect anything, Malfoy," he replied smugly, or at least I interpreted it as smug, but maybe it was Gryffindor pride or some other emotion I wasn't familiar with.

"I think I know you pretty well," I said. "I've shared a classroom with you for over six years."

"You didn't even know about my godfather and he was a huge part of my life for two of those years," Harry scoffed.

Touché.

"Okay fine, so then tell me something about you," I challenged.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Where did you get the invisibility cloak?" I began. I was curious if my prediction was correct.

"My father left it to me," Harry replied easily.

"And who left it to him?" I asked.

"I'm not sure actually. You see I've never gotten to ask," he replied sarcastically.

I laughed triumphantly. "I know something about you that you don't even know about yourself."

"And that would be?" he asked, sounding irritated.

"I know who your great, great grandfather was, and he had that cloak before your father, probably even passed down to him from _his_ father," I boasted.

"How do you know that?" he asked skeptically.

Well shit. I was so busy trying to impress Potter that I forgot I wasn't supposed to have the time turner, or even know about it for that matter. Why was I trying to impress Potter anyhow? "I read about him in some of my family's journals," I lied.

"Why would my great, great grandfather be in one of the Malfoy family journals?" he asked, and it was a good question, one that I did not have a good answer to… yet.

"They were… er… it's sort of a long story," I stammered.

"Well, I know you can't see me, but I'm getting comfortable so that you can prattle on with your long story," he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice.

"Okay, so the story isn't actually long… just complicated," I replied, seriously not wanting to tell Potter anything else. I debated just leaving, but decided that would be rude. What irked me the most was that a couple hours ago I wouldn't have blinked at being rude to Potter.

"Tell me," he demanded, but in such a playful way that I found it impossible to resist. So I just blurted out the truth, or at least the version of the truth I could tell him.

"He and my great, great grandfather were lovers in school, then apparently they split up when they left Hogwarts," I said, probably so quickly that Potter wouldn't even understand a word of it.

I wasn't quite that lucky though. He understood all of it; only his reaction was not at all what I expected.

"Tell me about him, please," he asked, his voice soft and childlike, as if he were asking me to read him his favorite bedtime story. "Everything you read about him," he added.

It was the please that did it.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. How could I deny this boy, who never knew his own parents let alone any of his other family, this seemingly simple thing? I would have to be careful though, or else I might reveal too much and link myself to the theft of the time turner.

"Aren't you curious about the fact that he and my ancestor were lovers?" I asked, my own curiosity peaked at his apparent lack of concern.

"Why should I be? I have nothing to say about the sexual preference of a man who died long before I was even born," Harry replied reasonably.

"How about his choice of partner then?" I asked, trying to get something out of him that even remotely resembled my confusion over it, but then, Potter hadn't witnessed it in such close proximity as I had.

"He probably could have done worse," Harry replied, and even though I couldn't see him shrugging, I could imagine the gesture well enough.

"You seriously have no problem with this?" I asked incredulously.

"You do apparently. It's not like it's us," he replied.

And that was it; he hit the nail on the head. I was still thinking about it as being Harry and I, still picturing it and hearing the echo of it in my mind. If I perceived that to be my life, having a relationship like that with Potter, would it come true? No possible way. "Right," I said at last and I proceeded to tell him what little bit I knew about his family. "His name was Edward Potter," I began.

"And your great, great grandfather?" he asked.

"Orion," I replied.

"That's a nice name," Harry whispered, and for the first time I wished he hadn't put the cloak back on so I could see his face.

"Nice like Draco?" I asked playfully.

"Draco is nice too," he agreed and I blushed. I could feel it coloring my cheeks and I thanked Merlin that he couldn't see me. "Tell me more."

"Well, he looked just like you, except he had hazel eyes," I said.

"And no scar," he whispered.

"Clearly," I replied. "But otherwise he was very similar. Same messy black hair, same height, same build, he even wore glasses too," I added.

"Your family journals are thorough," he commented.

"Yes, they are. Malfoy's are nothing if not thorough," I replied.

"So he looked like me?" Harry asked.

"Very much so," I confirmed.

"I can see why Orion fell for him," he joked.

I smiled despite myself. "Me too," I whispered, not believing the words falling from my mouth. I mean sure, Potter was good looking… for a boy, but that was just it, he was a boy!

"What?" he asked, my luck finally showing in that he didn't hear me.

"Nothing. Anyway, maybe _he_ fell for Orion?" I replied smugly.

"Did Orion look like you?" he asked.

"Nearly identical," I replied.

"Then I could see that, too," Harry said with no trace of sarcasm or teasing.

"What?" I was appalled, speechless and several other emotions I couldn't begin to describe.

"Come on, Malfoy. You know what you look like. Your looks are probably your only redeeming quality," he teased with a laugh.

"Hey!" I shouted, not able to come up with a suitable response to Potter's sudden dig.

Harry kept laughing for a good while, but eventually calmed. "I was just kidding, mostly."

"Mostly?" I asked.

"Well, I was kidding about it being your only redeeming quality, but you are attractive, and I'm sure you were well aware of that long before I said anything," Harry added.

"Yes, I was, but knowing you think so is different," I said, not really meaning to. For some reason my brain didn't seem to work right when I was around Potter.

"Why? Because of our ancestors?" Harry asked, unexpectedly perceptive.

"Perhaps," I offered, unwilling to give up and further introspective.

"That's not going to happen between us," Harry said, the grin still evident in his voice but all other mirth had faded.

"How do you know?" I asked, truly curious how he could make such a confident statement.

"Because I know _us_, and I know it would take far more than a civil conversation by the lake to fix the damage between us," he said.

"Right. Why didn't I think of that?" I said.

"Probably because you were too busy trying to picture me naked," Harry teased.

"I--what? I most certainly was not," I stammered but Harry only laughed and I could hear the sound of his voice moving a little further away. He was no longer leaning against the tree, and instead he was standing behind me, as if to leave.

And apparently those were his exact intentions. "Thanks for cheering me up, Malfoy, but I'm going to go before you say something to ruin all of it," he said with a laugh and then everything was silent.

I was left there, staring off into space, with no invisible Harry to talk to, and I felt utterly bereft of his presence.

Authors Note: For reviewing this chapter I think I shall be handing out kazoo's and Viewfinders with naughty pictures of Harry and Draco.


	3. Nothing More Than Feelings

Authors note: Many thanks to my beta and the lovely young lady who requested this fic. Shannon. You'll be seeing her in the story soon! This story is moving much quicker than my fics usually do, so brace yourselves

Chapter 3 Nothing More Than Feelings

The next couple of weeks went by without another run in with Potter. His gaze deftly avoided mine at mealtimes and he never once glanced my way during classes. It was as if I was invisible to him, and it left me wondering if I had ever really spoken to him at all.

I went from being certain that he did it on purpose and getting angry over it, to being sure it was all in my mind and that he was acting the same as always, to being relieved that he was ignoring me and pretending my temporary bought with insanity hadn't existed. At one point I even convinced myself that he was avoiding me because he had feelings for me as well and was afraid, which was complete rubbish of course.

I was in turmoil, unsure of what I wanted the answer to be.

Finally I managed to convince myself that I didn't crave his attention, and certainly not his acceptance, and by no means did I _ever_ want him to have feelings for me. That would be absurd.

Unless it was, of course, to tease him over it, but my heart just wasn't really in it when it came to teasing Potter anymore. I tried, really I did. The word 'scarhead' was on my lips no less than a dozen times during that first week, but it never seemed right, just never quite the right time to hurl an insult.

Surprisingly Crabbe and Goyle noticed it instantly. I never would have thought of them as the observant type, but apparently they were very watchful when it came to me. To my benefit or my detriment I had yet to find out.

We were sitting in the Great Hall at breakfast, I had been watching Potter all morning, waiting for him to turn and look in my direction. I didn't even know what I would do if he did look my way, and there was no reason to think he would since I hadn't seen even a glimpse of those piercing green eyes in weeks, but I couldn't seem to keep myself from staring.

I was curious to note that the boy seemed happier, sitting between his two friends, than he had before our chat that may or may not have even happened.

It was then that I realized that Vince had been speaking and I tried to pick up on the end of it. "- New transfer from Beaxbatons."

"I heard she was supposed to be here before lunch and that she'll be sorted by the Headmaster personally," Goyle added.

"I hope she's sorted into Slytherin. We could use a new girl in our house. Pansy and her giggling minions are getting annoying," Crabbe replied.

"Does anyone know her name?" I asked, trying to contribute to the conversation.

"I already said boss, weren't you listening?" Vince asked.

"He was probably still ogling Potter," Goyle teased.

I lashed out, grabbing the front of Goyle's robes in my fist and yanked him to his feet, leveling my wand at his jugular. "What was that, Goyle?" I hissed.

"Nothing, boss. I was only joking, honest," he prattled, scrambling to get away from me as I let go of his robes.

I was about to hit him with a mild hex, just something to remind Goyle of just who he was teasing, when a spark of green caught my eye and I realized that finally I was getting my way.

Potter was watching me.

I found myself suddenly wanting to earn that gaze, so I lowered my wand and stalked from the room, unsure what to do with myself. No doubt it would rankle Potter's noble Gryffindor sensibilities to watch someone, even someone he didn't like, get hexed in the middle of the Great Hall.

I didn't know what to do, but what I did know was that this whole situation was getting out of hand when I couldn't even discipline my own lackeys.

I ducked down a side corridor close to the stairs and slumped to the floor in defeat. I should have never gone into the past, never even stolen that ridiculous life ruining time turner. If I hadn't seen the easy and caring relationship that Orion and Edward had, I would never even look twice at Potter, and certainly not in that light, the light that made him soft and naked and yearning for my touch.

I shook my head violently, trying to clear the traitorous thoughts away and accidentally smacked my head roughly into the stone wall. I barely heard it when my name was whispered over my own painful groan.

"Malfoy," it whispered again and I looked around for the source of the noise.

Hovering in an unlit recess was a pair of sharp green eyes, and I had to blink before the rest of Harry came into view. "Potter," I hissed. "What the hell are you doing here?" I asked, secretly more pleased than I felt I could contain.

"I came to check on you. You seemed really angry back there," he whispered.

My heart began beating wildly as I thought of Potter coming out here for my benefit alone and I walked over to the small alcove where he stood.

The space was cramped, and with the two of us, we were practically on top of one another. I minded it far less than I should have and I was sure that Potter would be able to hear the violent thumping of my heart it was so loud and we were so close, almost touching.

"So are you talking to me now?" I asked, annoyance leaking into my voice.

Harry cast me a subtle smile and rolled his eyes. "No, not really, but you seemed really angry back there, and seeing as you helped me out a couple weeks ago, I thought I'd return the favor."

My heart sank into my gut at his words. "No need, Potter," I huffed and turned to walk away but a warm hand grabbed mine and the feeling of Harry's skin melted away all my doubts at his intentions. It was like electricity and Harry must have felt it too, because he dropped my hand almost immediately and looked down at his own like it was a foreign object.

Eventually Harry shook his head and looked back up to meet my eyes, his were filled with confusion and several other things I couldn't begin to name, but the confusion I was familiar with. "Why didn't you hex him?" he asked at last, pulling me sharply from my thoughts.

"Pardon?" I asked, knowing full well what he was referring to.

"You looked like you were going to hex Crabbe, and then you just walked away," he said.

"It was Goyle, not Crabbe," I corrected, deftly avoiding his question. I suddenly wasn't keen on lying to the Gryffindor, but at the same time I didn't feel like revealing my own turmoil.

"Does it matter?" he said with a laugh. "They're both just big dumb oafs."

I took a step back and folded my arms defensively across my chest. "They are no more big dumb oafs than your friends, Potter," I replied with a hollow sneer.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You mean the Weasel and the mudblood?" he scoffed sarcastically.

"I have not once called either of them names since we talked, Potter," I growled, hurt that he took our little meeting of the minds or whatever it was so lightly.

He opened his mouth to no doubt spout more Gryffindor nonsense, but promptly closed it and looked suitably chagrined. "This is really strange, and I feel like I've stepped into some alternate dimension," he muttered, "but you're right, Malfoy. I'm sorry."

I blinked, unsure I heard those words escape the pretty pink lips of my rival, and then silently berated myself for looking at Potter's lips. I nodded curtly in reply. "It's fine. We can't all be raised with proper manners I suppose," I said coldly and regretted it at once.

He scowled at me and seemed to be thinking of his next retort. What he finally did say was unexpected and possibly worse than any biting comment he could have made about me or my family or my housemates. "You never answered my question. Why didn't you hex Goyle?"

I sighed and leaned back into the alcove. Potter's proximity was getting the better of my brain cells and his scent, a mixture of cut grass, ink and something I couldn't even name, was making me say things I shouldn't. "Because you were watching me."

"So what, everyone in the Great Hall was watching you," he replied, looking confused.

"I could care less about any of them," I said before thinking it through and mentally kicked myself for the comment.

His face softened slightly and his lips curled into a faint smile that looked as though he was trying to suppress. "But you care about me?" he asked quietly.

"Yes, I mean, no, not the way you're thinking," I stammered.

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" he asked, his smile growing wider. I wanted to wipe that smile from his lips, but the manner with which I wanted to do so was unacceptable.

"I don't," I replied honestly, though it was rumored how bad Harry was at occlumency, I'm sure I could have read his mind without him ever knowing. It infuriated me that the idea of raiding Harry's private thoughts wasn't appealing.

"Well, I sort of think you might have a crush on me, Draco Malfoy," he said with a teasing lilt to his voice.

I willed my eyes not to widen at his words and to narrow instead. "Hardly, Potter," I scoffed. "In fact, any day now I should be expecting a letter from my father detailing my new bride to be," I added for extra persuasion, though I wasn't entirely sure who I was trying to convince.

I watched as his face faltered from a look of smug teasing, to that of a boy who had been rejected to something neutral and nondescript in a matter of moments. Hurt was still shining in his eyes though, and I realized in that moment that Potter had probably been just as confused as me. "Right," he said quietly. "I was only teasing. Could you imagine?" he asked with a forced sounding laugh. "You and I? If the school knew I'd be Voldemort bait in an instant," he joked.

I cringed at the thought and knew at once that it was true. If even one Slytherin got a hold of information like that, it would eventually get back to my father and be detrimental to both our life spans, shortening them significantly.

"We couldn't even be friends could we?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Harry just shook his head, mussing his already permanently windswept hair. If I knew any better, I'd say he looked upset about it. "Look Malfoy, I was only ignoring you because it's just easier that way. I'm afraid if I pay you any attention then people will suspect something, and even though there _is_ nothing to suspect, you know how easily rumors get started at Hogwarts," he said and I nodded, agreeing and wholeheartedly disagreeing all at once. "So, please don't pull a stunt like that just to get my attention anymore," he added.

"What?" I asked incredulously. "I didn't do it to get your attention."

"But you said-" he began but I promptly cut him off. I should have just let him think what he wanted, because the real reason was much worse.

"I said I didn't hex him because you were watching me, not that I was going to hex him to get your attention," I corrected.

"But-" he began again and I rolled my eyes.

"Potter, he called me out, saying that I was staring at you. That's why I grabbed him, and that's why I was _going_ to hex him. I stopped…" I began, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly to gather my nerve. I might as well finish what I started. " I lowered my wand because I didn't want you to think less of me," I said at last, looking away so as not to see the humor I expected to in those brilliant green orbs. "I have no idea why I told you that, and if you ever breathe a word of it I'll deny it and hex you into next week," I was quick to point out.

"Draco," he whispered, and the sound of my given name in his deep and sultry voice made me shiver. "Draco, I'm sorry. I didn't know. "

"It doesn't matter," I said with a wave. "It's just the… journals I read working their way into my mind. It's just a phase I'm sure, and soon enough I'll be back to the old Malfoy," I huffed.

"I hope not," Harry whispered. "Because I like _this_ one," he added.

I turned on him, wonder and surprise etched plainly on my face, certain he meant something besides what I thought he did, but allowing myself to hope nonetheless. "You-"

Harry's laughter cut me off and I turned away from him, berating myself for being so ignorant. He grabbed my chin and turned my face to look at his. "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you, I'm just laughing at the situation. This is all very ridiculous, you have to admit." Harry said.

"What's ridiculous, exactly?" I prompted.

"Well, I've had a crush on you since the moment I saw you. I was terribly upset that you turned out to be the enemy," Harry admitted with a wry grin.

"You… what?" I asked, completely baffled.

"I thought for a moment, when we talked before, that you might think about me too, but I guess I was wrong," he said with a shrug. "And if you leak a word of that to anyone I'll deny it and hex you into next week," he added, mimicking my words from earlier.

"I realized though, that it didn't matter. Whether you felt the same or not, we could never be together. I'm never able to keep anything about my life secret, and if people were to find out, it would mean your neck _and_ mine," he continued.

I gaped at him openly for several minutes before sealing my fate. "I don't care."

"What?" he asked.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm confused, but one thing I know for sure right now is that I like being with you and I'm not ready for it to stop," I whispered.

Harry blushed a vivid red and leaned in, pressing a soft kiss on my cheek. "I feel the same," he whispered. "But I won't ever risk that pretty neck of yours," he added, running feather light fingertips along my throat.

I didn't get a chance at a rebuttal, because in the very next moment, Harry was briskly walking away and the Great Hall was emptying of all its students so the corridor was filling rather quickly. I would have to choose another time to confront Potter about this little revelation, and I was determined to get my way next time.

Authors Note: Nudge, 'Review' Nudge. Okay then, how about for a freshly baked blueberry muffin? What if Harry baked it?


	4. Downward Spiral of Indulgence

Authors Note: This fic is requested, beta'ed and even stars the lovely Shannon (GothicBlackRose) lol. This fic moves faster than all of my othershavebeen, and its chapters arelonger too, soI hope you all enjoy it!

Chapter 4 Downward Spiral of Indulgence

I decided to knick food from the kitchens and have lunch in the Slytherin common room. Harry had been expertly ignoring my presence during all of our morning classes and I was beginning to feel reckless. I thought it might be best not to push my luck in that area just yet and stay away to gather my thoughts, a public confrontation in the Great Hall was _not_ what I needed right now. I still had two classes with him after lunch and I needed to have a clear head and my wits about me.

Making myself comfortable on the large sofa, I took a bite out of my sandwich, nearly spitting it out as a figure emerged from the shadows.

"Boo," she whispered; a playful grin on her face.

"Who are you?" I asked, not recognizing her one bit. I knew every Slytherin student, which meant she must not belong in our common room.

"Oh, surely the gossip about a new Hogwarts student has circled once or twice around the castle by now," she replied, looking curious and plopping herself at the other end of the vast green sofa I was sitting on.

"New student," I mumbled to myself and then recalled my fight with Goyle at breakfast. The news completely eluded me until that very moment, buried carefully under revelations that Harry liked me, but that nothing would ever happen between us. "I do seem to recall some mention of it. So you were sorted into Slytherin then?" I asked in my official capacity as captain obvious.

She nodded, her dark wavy hair bouncing around her face. It was a unique color, sort of black, yet the lights made it shift into tones that seemed more like purple. She stuck out her hand for me to shake and I was reminded vividly of the time I extended my own hand to Harry. Why did everything keep coming back to him?

After only a slight hesitation I accepted her hand. "Shannon," she told me her name.

"Draco," I replied in turn. "So, why aren't you in the Great Hall with everyone else?"

She shrugged. "The Headmaster's going to introduce me at dinner tonight and told me to settle in here until then."

"That's awfully nice of him. Maybe I can request a day off," I mused out loud.

"I hardly think the journey here from Paris constitutes a day off," she replied. "Plus I'd rather just get this new student shite over with."

"I would get used to it if I were you. Unless Harry Potter does something newsworthy, you're going to be the queen of the tabloids around here for awhile," I informed her truthfully.

"My friend Gabriel says that he's sweet, but they keep saying things… is he really as crazy as the _Prophet_ says?" she asked excitedly.

"No," I shouted, ready to defend this nonexistent boyfriend of mine and then quickly realized what I was doing. Here I was doing the exact opposite of what I should be doing to protect myself. I couldn't talk about my feelings for Potter, or even defend him to a virtual stranger. Even if she didn't know my father, she would soon be meeting a plethora of people who did. "He's crazier," I added at last.

She looked at me skeptically for a moment and then nodded. "I expected as much," she replied, still looking at me curiously.

"Lucky for you Potter probably _will_ do something completely moronic any minute now, so you'll probably be off the hook soon enough," I told her, trying to distract her from whatever devious thoughts seemed to be trailing through her mind.

She smiled and nodded. "So why aren't_ you _in the Great Hall?" she asked.

"I just didn't feel like company today," I replied distractedly.

"Right. Sorry; I should have realized," she said as she got up from her place on the sofa.

I was unexpectedly alarmed at her abrupt departure. "Shannon, you don't have to go. I didn't mean you, I meant… well, it was rude and I wasn't thinking. You should stay." I wasn't entirely sure why I wanted her to, but something about her was disarming and she was easy to talk to. Maybe it was because I didn't grow up with her, or maybe she just seemed more like a clever Ravenclaw than an evil malicious backstabbing Slytherin.

Or maybe she was just good at hiding her Slytherin attributes and had me fooled. Either way, I asked her to sit back down, and she did.

We chatted all through lunch, she told me about Beaxbatons and how she was in their choir and looking forward to joining the one at Hogwarts. I taught her how to handle Pansy and her cronies without getting beaten up.

All and all it was the most entertaining chat I'd had with anyone aside from Harry, and certainly the least life threatening, except for that time she threatened to kill me if I told anyone about her secret crush on a boy back in France.

As our lunch hour drew to a close she got up and offered her hand, pulling me up from the sofa as well.

"Would you like to be my escort today?" she asked innocently.

"Er…" I stammered, unable to find an easy way of telling her I wasn't interested in her that way.

"I don't mean in a romantic capacity," she corrected with a snicker. "Professor Snape said I could choose one of the Slytherin students to show me around the school. You'd get out of the rest of your classes for the day," she added.

Harry's face swam into my mind and a mixture of emotions filled me up. Part of me was hesitant to agree because then I wouldn't get to see him again until dinner. But the rest of me realized that maybe the less I saw him the better off I'd be. It would do me no good if I were caught gawking at the Gryffindor during Transfiguration.

So I agreed.

I got to legally skip classes for the rest of the day and wander around the school grounds showing Shannon everything of interest, from the secret kitchen entrance all the way up to the Astronomy tower.

When we finally returned to the common room, classes were over and most of our Slytherin housemates were there, awaiting our arrival. News had quickly traveled that the new girl was, indeed, sorted into Slytherin and they all wanted to meet her.

I left Shannon to her fate and quickly left, wanting no part in that pool of piranhas. I was only wandering the halls for a few minutes when I was pulled roughly into a disused classroom.

I heard a locking and silencing charm being muttered and my heart sped up. Still disoriented I looked around, trying to spot my attacker, thinking Goyle might have finally mastered the disillusionment charm I had taught him and was planning to pay me back for breakfast, when Potter slipped off the invisibility cloak and pinned me sharply against the wall.

"Where the hell have you been?" he hissed.

"What the fuck, Potter," I shouted, trying to shake him off. His small frame was surprisingly powerful, and I wasn't able to move an inch under his grasp. "I was showing the new girl around the school," I told him at last.

His grip slackened slightly and he leaned his forehead against mine, his breath ghosting over my lips. "I was so worried," he whispered.

"Worried? Why?" I asked, unable to fathom what in Merlin's name he could possibly be worried about. "I never even left the castle."

"I just knew someone must have overheard us this morning and taken you," he whispered, his lips hovering dangerously close to mine.

"It won't happen that way," I informed him, and it wouldn't. If ever someone suspected me of treason it would first be reported to my father, then he would summon me to the manor to find out if it were true or not. I told all this to Potter, but it didn't cheer him any.

"So it's like a business transaction?" he asked.

I shrugged and nodded, thinking that was a fair description. "Sort of. If I'm innocent they'll let me come back, no harm no foul."

"And if your guilty?" he asked, his voice barely a breath and his eyes boring into mine.

"Death; probably quick because of who my father is. Though, for this they might make an exception," I replied, noticing the fear flicker through his eyes.

"I should just leave you alone," he whispered.

"Then why don't you?" I asked, foolishly aware of how badly I wanted him to stay.

"I don't want to," he replied with an apologetic smile, right before his lips crashed into mine.

The kiss was so sudden that it took my breath away. None of my experimenting with Pansy, or even seeing my doppelganger relative from the past prepared me for that moment. Harry's lips were soft and urgent, as if he had waited for the moment to kiss me for years, and if what he said earlier was true, maybe he had.

I pressed back into him as much as I could; given the grip he had on me, and opened my mouth to the onslaught of his tongue. He expertly maneuvered his way around my mouth, licking and nipping at my lips and teeth, and I felt the burning flame of jealousy whip through me for a moment as I thought of who he might have been practicing with.

He tasted like licorice wands and pumpkin juice and I found myself craving to taste more of him as he devoured my mouth. Despite the wild screaming protestations in my head, which sounded disturbingly like my father's voice, I realized that I was receiving my first real kiss, and that it was with a boy.

And of course, seeing as though a Malfoy couldn't possibly do things simply, it couldn't be any boy, it had to be the Gryffindor Golden Boy. Not just anyone was good enough, important enough, or perfect enough to captivate me in this way, but Harry staked his unlikely claim on me and my whole body responded in turn.

The kiss was broken just as suddenly as it had begun and Harry panted against my mouth, his lips swollen, his chest heaving and his emerald eyes boring into mine. "I never thought I'd get to do that," he whispered with a low seductive chuckle.

"Happy to oblige," I replied, still trying to catch my own breath and trying not to look as frantic as I felt. The minute the kiss was broken the veil lifted from my mind and I could see clearly the danger we were both volunteering for.

In a way it was almost too late. Voldemort, my father or even Snape could easily pluck this vivid memory from my mind and use it to incriminate me. What was worse, though, was that all my Slytherin traits of self-preservation were still buried deep below the confusing haze I felt when I thought about Harry.

"This is wrong in so many ways," I whispered, my lips still brushing against his in the barest of touches.

Harry dropped my arms and took several steps back, watching me with those same sad apologetic eyes. "I'm sorry. I promised I wouldn't do this," he said at last, rubbing his hands up and down his arms as if to warm himself.

"I'm not complaining I just…" I began, but realized at once I had no real idea of what I wanted to say to him.

Harry held up his hand to stop my words and shook his head. "I should be better than this, I _will_ be better than this. I'm sorry, Draco. I promise not to endanger you again," he said, turning his head sharply away from me.

The loss of touch, followed by the loss of eye contact was almost too much for me to bear. "Did you just call me Draco?" I asked, afraid I might have imagined the soft lilt of his voice with my given name on his still swollen lips.

Those same lips curved into a smile and he shrugged, still not looking at me. "I might have," he responded.

"I like it," I told him truthfully and closed the space between us. I didn't know what possessed me to be so careless and indulgent, but all that mattered to me in that moment was that I wanted Harry, and a Malfoy always gets what they want. "Say it again," I whispered; close to his ear and judging by the shivers that rippled down his body, he enjoyed the close proximity as much as I did.

"Draco," he breathed, just the barest of sounds but it was enough to make my heart beat faster.

I flicked my tongue out, grazing it along his earlobe and his head lolled back. "Draco," he whispered again, spurning me forward and I sucked that same earlobe into my mouth, and then trailed my tongue along his neck until I reached his collarbone.

"Draco," he moaned against my ear, digging sharp fingertips into my hipbones. I thrust forward, letting him feel how aroused I was, and he pressed his length against me in answer. I ran fingers under his shirt, feeling his hot bare flesh and causing another wave of shudders rocketing through his body.

Grabbing him under the arse I carried him over to the nearest desk, pinning him so that he was half sitting, half leaning against it and I pulled him into a searing kiss. Tongues tangled in a dance for dominance as my fingers threaded through his ebony curls.

"Draco," he groaned almost unintelligibly against my mouth and reached for me, pressing the flat of his palm against my throbbing erection. I hissed at the sensation, both a relief and a building of pressure in my groin. He gripped me through my trousers and I nearly cried out, my own hand going immediately to the waistband of his pants and fumbling with the button.

I wrapped my hand around the burning hot flesh of Harry's erection and gently squeezed. His eyelids closed, thick black eyelashes fluttering at my touch, my name whispered on his lips once more. I was pleased to note he was nearly the same size as me as I stroked him.

He rushed to catch up with me and when I felt his nimble fingers close around me I fought to keep my eyes open. I wanted to savor every expression on the Gryffindor's face as he enjoyed the pleasure of my touch and I his. Harry smiled triumphantly, looking as though he has just caught the illusive snitch.

And this was it, the moment of no return.

As we stroked each other to completion my mind reeled at the situation we found ourselves in. The rivalry that had been building for years crumbling around us in the most unlikely fashion I could imagine. Was this what I wanted? Was Harry _who_ I wanted? And if so, what would I risk to get him?

My body answered for me, as I shuddered my climax into Harry's fist, squeezing him firmly and yanking his own orgasm from his beautiful pink lips. I think I cried out his name, but everything in that moment was a blur as I fought to swim through the haze of afterglow up to the surface of logical thought.

"Fuck, Draco," Harry whispered.

I didn't think I would be able to form coherent words until I looked into his jewel-toned eyes. "Not yet," I whispered, a subtle smirk falling into place.

He rolled his eyes and swatted me playfully, his hand still coated with my own fluids. My own thoughts made me chuckle and Harry looked at me quizzically. "Malfoy men aren't allowed to masturbate," I told him.

"What?" Harry asked. "That's ridiculous, why?"

"Every lost ejaculation is the loss of a potential heir," I replied, grimacing and laughing at the same time. I had never really questioned my father before when he told me this crude rule, and it had only applied once I turned seventeen. Suddenly the sheer absurdity of the whole situation hit me at once and I buckled over with uncontrolled laughter.

I probably looked like my Aunt Bella during one of her fits, but Harry just waited calmly and patiently for me to resume my previous sanity. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, nodding when I was finished. "Sorry," I muttered, embarrassed to have shown so many layers of emotion to Potter, an enemy up until just days before.

What was he now?

"It's okay, I imagine this goes against… well, everything," Harry replied shyly.

I cast a quick and thorough cleaning charm on the both of us and swiftly dressed, averting my eyes as Harry did the same. "You have no idea," I muttered, still quivering with a mixture of emotions too vast for me to name. "I just broke over a dozen Malfoy laws in the last half hour alone."

Harry smiled sadly and grabbed my hand, running his thumb in careful circles across my palm. "You say the word and I'll leave you alone," Harry whispered. "It was never my intention to cause you pain."

My cold Slytherin intelligence told me to take his out, just tell him that it was a one-time thing and go our separate ways, the rest of me didn't agree. Everything else told me to kiss him, to hold him and to never let go.

I hated being so conflicted and unsure. I hated knowing that the only real happiness I had ever known was in the hands of my sworn enemy. But even more than all of that, I loathed how helpless and broken I felt when I considered turning away from Harry.

"You don't cause it," I replied. "You're my only relief from it."

I don't know what random Hufflepuff trait made me gush like a girl, but I couldn't seem to stop it. Harry didn't seem to mind though, because he pulled me tightly against him and pressed a firm kiss to my temple.

"It doesn't change the danger of all of this, you know?" he whispered into my hair. "I'm a selfish arse for even allowing it."

"That's true," I offered with a slight grin.

I could feel rather than see his answering smile. "I have no idea how we're going to keep this a secret."

I laughed, but it was the laugh of the condemned. "I doubt we can."

"We have to," Harry replied urgently, shaking me in his grip.

"Oh, trust me, I know. I'm just thinking over what I want on my epitaph, because like you said, it will be virtually impossible," I noted.

Harry pulled me into a rough embrace and then shoved me suddenly away. "Then we have to stay away from each other. I already have too many deaths on my shoulders. I will not have yours," he choked out. No tears were evident in his eyes but the tone of his voice warned they were close.

I closed the distance between us, wrapping him in my arms. "The only thing more impossible than keeping this a secret is for me to stay away from you." I knew my words were true. No matter how many times I cursed what I saw in the past between Orion and Edward, no matter how illogical it was for me to look at Potter differently after that, it still didn't change the fact that both things happened and to me this was more real than anything else.

Harry stared at me, his eyes a smoldering dark green, and he looked as though he were trying to read my mind. "You're serious?" he asked at last. "This puts you in more danger than me, are you certain?"

"I think it puts you in the exact same amount of danger," I rebuked.

He looked at me like I was completely daft and shook his head. "Really Draco, I couldn't possibly be in any more danger than I am now, but you… you're safe right now."

"If you think _anyone_ is safe around Voldemort then you're fooling yourself," I replied, a little more hostile than I had intended.

Harry sighed and nodded. "It's too late isn't it?" he asked softly.

"The minute I walked up to you by the lake it was too late. Now… well now it's so far past too late I don't even have a name for it," I replied.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, looking desperately angry with himself.

"I'm not," I whispered and kissed him lightly, the barest brush of lips.

Harry melted into me once more and then pulled back suddenly. "I think dinner's already started," he groaned.

"You go, I'll knick something from the kitchens and eat in the common room," I said.

"It'll look suspicious if you don't show up," he replied with a shake of his head.

"It'll look worse if we _both_ show up late," I countered, knowing that to be true. The gossipmongers might be temporarily appeased by Shannon's arrival, but they would never fail to miss something as monumental as Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy both arriving late and looking well and truly shagged.

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It's already hard and we've barely done anything."

"Thanks," I replied sarcastically.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You know what I mean. Tonight was… well… wow, but a discrete snog in an unused classroom will be nothing compared to what they'll have to speculate about if we keep this up."

I shook my head and chucked my tongue. "Naughty Harry. Already planning our next rendezvous?" I asked in jest.

Harry gave me a wicked grin that tightened things low in my body. "Of course I am."

I found this bold seductive Potter so intriguing I almost gave in and let him have his way with me right there. My mind shook me loose from his captivating gaze though, and loath as I was to admit it, we needed to part ways for the time being. "Dinner," I reminded him.

"Right. When will I see you again?" he asked.

"You mean aside from potions in the morning?" I asked and he made a rude gesture that I pretended wasn't for me. "I don't know. We lucked out this time, but we can't keep sneaking into classrooms. Eventually we'll get caught."

Harry nodded sagely. "I know. I'll think of something and get a message to you when I do," he said at last, and then kissed me boldly before walking to the door. "Be careful," he called behind him as he slipped out into the corridor.

I waited nearly twenty minutes before following, using the time to berate myself for getting into such a mess. It was easy to think clearly when I had no penetrating emerald eyes staring into mine. No, that's not true. Harry was still the only face in my mind, and his eyes still shown like he was standing in front of me.

I silently groaned as I made my way down to the kitchens for the second time that day. My whole routine was being messed up because of the Gryffindor hero, and I was fairly certain things were just going to go downhill from there.

Authors Note: I told you last chapter that this fic moves quickly. Was I right or was I right? lol. For reviewing this chapter you'lleach get Harry and Draco shaped lollies!


	5. Drowning

Authors Note: Many thanks to my beta for this chapter, Shannon. Also, I've started a yahoo group for anyone who wishes to join which I will be using for various things related to my fiction including update alerts, story/chapter discussion and other things. If you're interested you can join at groups dot yahoo dot com/group/Digitallace/

Chapter 5 Drowning

I tried to disguise my increasingly bad mood as one day, then two and finally an entire week went by without a word, note or glance from Potter. My foul mood was obvious to everyone, even Shannon, or should I say especially Shannon, who seemed to have a knack for noticing things and taking care of everyone.

In one weeks time she had managed to turn the Slytherin common room into a relaxing haven, almost a home, whereas Harry managed to make me temperamental and volatile. At every meal I would search him out, wait for him to spare even _one_ knowing glance in my direction, but it never happened. He just sat there, seemingly content in the company of Weasel and the Know-It-All.

"Draco, are you feeling okay?" Shannon asked the morning of the eighth day with no contact from Harry, not that anyone was counting.

"Peachy, why?" I asked, trying to mask my bitterness and failing miserably.

She frowned and put her hand over mine, stilling the movement of my fork. "Because that poor egg probably has over a dozen lethal stab wounds," she teased, but her green eyes held a warm comfort that seemed to be coaxing me to open up and talk.

At the same time her eyes reminded me of Harry's. Though Shannon's were not the same shade of crystal emerald green of Harry's, and her eye color tended to change slightly depending on her surroundings, while Harry's seemed to only shift in darkness depending on his mood. Regardless, it was enough to make me want to shout out all the angry things I had prepared to scream at Harry when… or if… he ever deemed it worthy to speak with me again.

I refrained myself though and merely shrugged at her joke. She took my fork and held a bit of egg up to my lips. "Eat," she prodded.

"I'm not hungry," I complained, moving out of the way.

"Draco, you have to eat. You've been picking through your meals for over a week now," she chastised. "If you keep this up by the end of this week you'll have dropped a stone," she added, poking at my already nearly exposed ribs.

"Fine," I huffed and leaned in to take the bite from her offered fork. And of course the King of Bad Timing had to take that opportunity to finally look my way. His emerald eyes flicked from mine to Shannon and then to the fork she was feeding me with.

Harry's face formed a questioning frown as I took the next offered bite, and then the next, letting my gaze drift from him to Shannon, who was aiming at another bite of food on my plate. I smiled weakly and let her feed me one final bite of egg before I took my fork back.

A loud bang erupted through the Great Hall and when I looked up, Harry had left, obviously in a huff. Ron and Hermione were staring straight at me so I shot them my best sneer and turned my attention back over to Shannon.

"What was that all about?" she asked curiously, her eyes flicking to the left behind portion of the Golden Trio.

I shrugged and poked at my food again. "I wouldn't even begin to try and understand Potter and his band of rejects."

She frowned at me slightly and returned to her own meal, glancing up only occasionally at me while I reluctantly ate the rest of mine.

As we walked to potions she kept watching me out of the corner of her eye. "I'm fine, Shan, I promise," I told her. And I was, well, I was telling myself I was until I saw him standing in front of the potions classroom waiting for Snape to open the door.

He glanced up once, and just that once was enough to see that he was burning up with jealousy. I ignored him and kept my place at Shannon's side, leaning just a hair closer then was necessary and could nearly feel the hurt and fury at my movement coming off of his skin like a palpable wave. It was wrong to toy with him in this manner, but he had it coming.

"You're Harry Potter right?" Shannon asked, extending out her hand for Harry to shake, but Harry just looked down at it the same as he had me that first day on the train.

I felt a surge of anger boil inside me as Harry snubbed my friend in the same manner he had snubbed me years ago, only Shannon was being perfectly polite and it was Harry who was being the jackass this time.

"The lady asked you a question, Potter," I sneered.

Harry rolled his eyes and turned away, deftly ignoring both of us. I was close to shoving him into the wall, I was so angry, when the door to the potions classroom opened and Snape eyed us all curiously before stepping away and allowing us entry.

Harry shoved us aside, bumping roughly against me, nearly knocking me over and went to take his seat toward the front. I couldn't tell how much of his attitude was for show and how much of it Harry was really feeling, but I started to seethe. Not only was he treating Shannon so rudely for no reason whatsoever, but he also had the audacity to treat me like shit after not speaking to me for over a week.

Who the fuck did he think he was?

I was close to asking him that very same question when I felt an uncomfortable heat against my leg. It was getting increasingly warmer and I reached carefully into my robe pocket and found the culprit.

A small gold scrap of parchment was folded and shoved into my pocket. It had a warming charm on it and would have kept getting warmer and warmer until I noticed it. I slowly unfolded the note and almost smiled to myself when I saw Potter's familiar handwriting scrawled across it in black ink, but then I quickly remembered that I was angry with him and doused the slow smile erupting on my face.

The simple note consisted of only four words, but still my heart started to beat faster after reading each one.

_Prefect's bathroom._

_After class._

Simple instructions, no name and if I discarded it there was nothing to incriminate either of us. Potter was cleverer than I had originally suspected, even more so for his method of transfering to note to me in the first place, but still I balled the scrap in my fist and shoved it back into my pocket and eyed Harry warily.

That note was exactly what I wanted, a meeting with Harry, but now I wasn't so sure. He had deftly ignored me for over a week, and a Malfoy is at no ones beck and call. I seriously debated standing him up and going straight to the Slytherin common room, but we would both have a free period after this class and spending two uninterrupted hours with Harry sounded appealing, even if we spent the first bit of it fighting.

"What was that?" Shannon asked from beside me. I had nearly forgotten she was there when I read the note; I was too focused on my conflicted emotions about Harry.

"What was what?" I asked, playing dumb.

"That bit of paper," she pried, or rather it probably just felt like prying because I didn't want to tell her.

"Oh, that? Just a note to remind me of something I need to do after class," I lied. Well, I didn't lie exactly, I just didn't tell the _entire_ truth. "Did you finish the essay for Transfiguration later today?" I asked, trying to distract her from the note.

"Just last night," she replied with a nod. "That class is a little further ahead than we were at Beaxbatons, but I think I'm mostly caught up now."

"Good, good," I replied distractedly, still watching the back of Harry's head as the class filled in around us.

"Draco," Shannon whispered, close to my ear.

"Hm?" I asked, still waiting for Harry to turn around so I could give him some indication that I had gotten his note.

"You're staring at Harry Potter like you're trying to set him on fire," she whispered again, sounding both amused and concerned.

"Maybe I am," I whispered back with a smirk, trying to rid myself of the spell Potter seemed to have put on me. It was the easiest explanation for my being so thoroughly enamored with the boy who was, up until a week ago, my hugest rival.

Even though it was my favorite subject, potions went so slowly. Professor Snape spent extra time at our desk making sure that Shannon was up to speed, which helped keep my mind off of Potter for a while at least. I still had no idea whether or not I should meet him though.

As the classroom cleared I noticed that Harry was one of the first out the door so I lingered. "What are you doing now?" I asked Shannon, trying to stall my departure.

She shrugged and started gathering her things. "Probably catch up on some reading I have for History of Magic," she responded. "You?"

"I'm not sure just yet. Maybe go practice Quidditch, maybe I'll end up in the library at some point," I fibbed. I was going directly to the prefect's bathroom after this and I was either going to punch or molest Harry Potter, all depending on how apologetic he was when I arrived.

"Well, have fun. I'm a huge Quidditch fan and can't wait to see you play. Maybe sometime I could come watch you practice?" she asked brightly and I nodded at once.

It seemed that all my new relationships were moving quickly. First Harry, who I couldn't stop thinking about, and then Shannon, who was turning out to be the closest friend I had ever had at the school, all within a weeks time.

"I have practice tomorrow night if you want to come. It's not as exciting as a game, but if you get bored you can always leave," I mentioned.

"Great, well… I'll see you at lunch then?" she asked and I nodded, watching her leave.

Shannon was very pretty, and part of me was happy that Harry had me so distracted because otherwise I probably would have tried dating her and botched it all up, then I might never have known what a brilliant friend she would be.

I took the long way to the fifth floor, walking up and down unnecessary corridors along the way. When I finally arrived at the entrance to the Prefect's bathroom, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before pushing the door open and striding in haughtily.

It was important that Potter not forget that he was dealing with a Malfoy still, and that just because of a brief snog I wasn't going to turn into some Hufflepuff idiot who would bend over at Potter's every whim.

Well, I might very well bend over for Potter, but that's not the point.

I stalked into the room and clamped my hands over my ears as one of the stall doors slammed, making a tremendous clamor in the echoing chamber.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Potter asked as he strode to my side. He cast a quick locking and silencing charm on the door behind me and then swiftly had me pinned against it.

I looked at him incredulously, trying to squirm out of his grasp but finding him yet again, quite a bit stronger than I anticipated. "I'm meeting you here like you asked," I told him, trying to keep my composure in spite of the position I found myself in.

Harry shook his head and rolled his eyes. "I mean the new girl."

"What about her?" I asked, my anger rising as I recalled how nasty he had been to her that morning.

"Are you fucking her?" Harry asked. His face was a carefully stoic mask, but his eyes held fury and pain.

"What's the matter, Potter, jealous?" I asked in a mocking tone.

Harry let go abruptly and I almost fell. He stepped back and the careful mask he was wearing slipped for just a moment but finally he just shook his head in dismay. "I told you I had always liked you, that I wanted you and you seemed to feel the same way. Then I turn around and you have this girl feeding you and fawning all over you at breakfast," he said with a sigh, sitting at the edge of the large marble bathing pool. "Of course I'm jealous."

I gaped at his easy admission but quickly put myself back on the defensive. "Maybe you should have turned around sooner," I spat. "It's been over a week since we've spoken, and you never sent me word like you said and you never even looked my direction," I yelled, by voice growing more snarling by the second.

A twitch of a smile ghosted on Harry's lips but quickly faded. "You replaced me pretty quickly," he whispered at last, looking down at his shoes.

"I couldn't replace you even if I wanted to, which I don't," I amended. "Shannon's just a friend. I'm not dating her and certainly not sleeping with her."

Harry looked up and my heart broke just a little as I looked into his brilliant green eyes brimming with unshed tears. I wanted to go to him, to wrap him up in my arms and kiss away the sorrow, but I resisted.

"If you're so concerned, why didn't you try to contact me all week?" I asked.

Harry laughed harshly, making me shiver slightly. "I spent a couple days wondering if it had even happened, thinking it was more likely that I had dreamed the entire thing. It just seemed far too unlikely that I had actually spent time talking to you, holding you… kissing you," he groaned.

I started to protest, but he cut me off before I got another word in edgewise.

"Then I worried that you were trying to trick me," he added.

"What?" I asked, dumbfounded at first and then immediately more respectful of Harry then I had ever been before. Not even I, a master Slytherin plotter, had thought of the possibility that Harry was trying to trick me. It would have been easy enough for him to have done given my recent absentminded state where all things Harry were concerned.

He could try to coax information from me about Voldemort, capture me and hold me for ransom, or even kill me to try and get back at my father for everything he's done to Harry and his friends.

And here I was thinking about it for the first time now and only at Harry's prompting, where Harry had assumed the worst from the beginning. Probably thinking I was trying to lure him in to take to Voldemort myself.

Though the offer would have been more than tempting a couple weeks ago, I could never agree to it now. "If I took you to my father, who would kill Voldemort and keep me safe?" I asked him with a subtle smirk.

Harry smiled softly and shrugged. "You'd be on your own I guess."

I walked over and sat beside him at the pools edge. "That just wouldn't do," I whispered.

"Swear to me you're telling the truth," he said. "Swear to me that this is real," he added, gesturing between the two of us.

"I swear," I promised him, and I meant it with all my heart. A shining silver light circled around us, speeding up until it crashed into my torso and left me feeling like I had rubbed several ice chips across my chest.

"What was that?" I asked incredulously.

Harry looked mildly chagrined. "An honesty spell. Hermione taught it to me."

I lifted my eyebrow slightly, both appalled and intrigued by his statement. Harry would have done well in Slytherin but at the same time some of the Gryffindor tendencies were only too obvious. "Please, tell me Granger doesn't know about us," I groaned.

"Merlin, no," Harry denied with a smile. "Though I would bet ten galleons that she's the first to figure it out."

"I don't know how she stands a chance of doing so if we haven't even figured it out yet," I mumbled.

"You'd be surprised," he replied and turned to look at me, his green eyes blazing. "Draco," he whispered, but didn't get much further because I could no longer resist his perfectly pink lips. I kissed him fiercely and he seemed so startled by the suddenness of it that he fell backward, into the bathing pool… and pulled me down with him.

"Harry," I sputtered as I finally found my footing and was able to stand in the waist deep water, the disturbed bubbles flying around my face and sticking to my hair.

Potter emerged a moment later, alternating between choking and laughing, his unruly hair matted to his head. "That was _so_ smooth," Harry teased.

"Hey," I responded indignantly. "I'm not the one who pulled you into the water. I hope your balance is better for the Slytherin/Gryffindor game otherwise you'll be too easy to beat."

"You wish, Malfoy," Harry shouted in jest and tackled me back under the water.

We wrestled in the bath, laughing and joking for what seemed like hours, before finally I had enough and I pinned him against the edge of the pool, straddling his lap and kissing him with a passion I never even knew I was capable of feeling.

He kissed me back that time, a tangle of tongues and lips competing for dominance as he arched into me, rubbing our erections together. I gasped at the friction and started ripping at his clothing with frenzied movements.

A firm hand stopped me and I looked into Harry's eyes. He looked panicked and I didn't understand the reason. "We're going to get caught," he hissed.

I sighed, reprimanding myself for not being the cautious one. What had happened to me over the past couple weeks to make me so reckless? "Right," I sighed again, moving away from him.

A sharp click echoed through the room and Harry's eyes went wide. As he predicted someone was coming in and they would catch Potter and I together. At once Harry ducked beneath surface of the water, his body completely masked by the bubbles and my own body.

Granger strode in and stopped short when she saw me. "Malfoy, what are you doing?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

"What does it look like, Granger?" I asked with my best sneer.

"I can't really think of a good reason for you to be fully clothed in the bathing pool," she replied, looking slightly concerned but mostly put out, as if I was committing a horrible crime by being dressed in the bath.

I was starting to get concerned for Harry, who was still underwater when I felt a sharp tug on my trousers, and a hot mouth envelope my cock. I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from crying out and I'm sure that, paired with the amount of squirming I was doing looked quite odd to Hermione.

"If you must know, I fell in," I managed to squeak out as I realized she was still waiting for me to answer. I could feel Harry swallowing around me and had no idea how he was able to breathe under the water let alone doing what he was under the waters surface.

"You fell in?" she asked skeptically.

My whole body shuddered at the feeling of Harry's mouth enveloping me and I had to concentrate hard not to cry out. "Yes, I did, not that it's any of you're business," I scoffed, or as close to scoffing as I could do while having my prick sucked furiously under the water.

"How did you get in anyhow, it was locked," I asked, while trying to keep from trashing.

She rolled her eyes. "Magic," she muttered and turned to leave. "Have you seen Harry?" she asked. "I thought I saw him slip in here earlier."

All I could do was shake my head as Harry pumped my cock with his fist while rolling his tongue around the head of it. "Oh," I moaned out loud, unable to stop myself it felt so incredible.

"What?" Hermione asked from the door.

"I said, _oh_ won't you leave already," I called out, my voice wavering, but she finally huffed and left the bathroom.

As soon as I heard the door click shut I cried out, threading my fingers through Harry's raven locks, as the orgasm rocketed through my body and my knees gave way under me and I splashed down into the water.

The ebony haired boy rose from the water with a wicked grin spreading across his face. "Hi," he said with a wink before dissipating the bubblehead charm he had been using on himself.

"Hi," I responded in turn, barely able to catch my breath as he leaned in to kiss me. I could taste myself on his tongue and moaned against his mouth. As I began to maul him he halted me again. "What now?" I groaned in protest.

"If Hermione's looking for me she must have something important to say," Harry replied.

"Granger can wait," I replied, but he only shook his head and smiled.

"She's even less patient then you are," he teased. "You did very well under pressure by the way," he added with a smirk that looked suspiciously stolen from _me_.

"You could have gotten us caught just then," I chastised lightly, only lightly because I didn't want to discourage the act, just the circumstances.

Harry only shrugged and continued to smirk at me. "It would have only been speeding up the inevitable. I'm telling you, she'll find out, it's only a matter of time,"

"And what will she do when she finds out?" I asked, suddenly nervous.

"She'll freak out, tell me I'm crazy to trust you. I'll tell her to butt out, and she'll refuse to speak to me for a few days and then eventually come around," he said with a smile.

"You sound pretty certain," I noted.

"It's not the first thing she's found out about me that she's not terribly fond of, plus she's always known I liked you. It probably won't come as too much of a surprise," he added.

"You tell your friends everything, don't you?" I asked, more than just a little astounded.

Harry laughed and shook his head. "Not everything. I could never tell Ron about this, he'd probably murder you," he laughed.

"He'd _try_," I replied, certain that no Weasley was a match for me.

"True," Harry agreed. "I doubt he'd be very successful, probably end up with some kind of pox or something."

"So Weasel's a bit homophobic?" I asked.

Harry grimaced and shrugged. "I don't know if he's homophobic or just Malfoy-phobic, but I'm not taking my chances either way. Though once Hermione finds out she's bound to tell Ron."

I sidled up to Harry and ran my fingers through his still wet hair. "If Ron tries to attack me, am I allowed to hurt him?" I purred against his ear.

Harry moaned, his eyes fluttering. "You're not allowed to ask me things like that so seductively," he replied.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I might say yes," Harry whispered.

"That's the point," I replied, gently massaging Harry's cock through his trousers.

"Fuck," he moaned and then promptly pulled away. "I have to go look for Hermione," he breathed.

"So you're going to leave before I get to return the favor?" I asked with an overly dramatic pout.

Harry grinned and nodded. "I'm taking a rain check," he said as he slipped out of the pool and cast a drying spell.

"You really should just let me take care of that," I said, gesturing toward his severely tented trousers.

Harry laughed and adjusted himself to fit better and covered it all with his robe. "It's probably very important. Hermione wouldn't try tracking me down for just anything."

"Are you going to avoid me for another week?" I asked with a mock sneer.

"No chance," Harry replied, ducking down to kiss me swiftly on the forehead. I resisted the urge to pull him back into the water and instead watched as he slipped out of the bathroom with a sly grin.

I missed him already, maybe I was turning into a Huflepuff. Wouldn't daddy be proud?

Authors Note: Please review, there might even be freshly baked be macademia nut cookies involved.


	6. Fractured Friendship

Authors Note: Many thanks to Shannon who not only beta'ed this chapter but also requested the fic in the first place. yay Shannon!

Chapter 6 Fractured Friendship

"You look better," Shannon noted the minute I sat next to her at lunch.

"I _feel_ better," I replied, failing to mention that I felt better because I just had had a sexy rendezvous with Harry in the prefect's bathroom. It was almost impossible to imagine him as my enemy anymore; I couldn't even remember why I had hated him for so many years. Since he was no longer my enemy though, what exactly was he? Boyfriend, lover, friend with benefits? None of those titles seemed to describe what I felt for him.

"Shannon, can I ask you something sort of strange," I asked.

"Erm, sure I guess," she replied with her green eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"What would you call it if you hung out with a person, and you hadn't had sex yet, but you wanted to, and you thought about this person all the time?" I asked and then regretted it right away.

"Does Draco Malfoy have a girlfriend?" she asked at once, a huge grin plastered on her pretty face.

"Hardly," I replied, rolling my eyes. "I was just asking what you would call that person, _if _that person were to exist."

"Right," she replied with a laugh, drawing the word out to be several syllables. "Well, then you would call that person your girlfriend… unless it's not a girl," she amended with a giggle.

I laughed, and I tried aiming for sarcastic 'right, like I would be interested in boys' laughter, but I think it ended up more nervous like 'can she tell I'm a flaming poof?' kind of laughter.

"So who is this mystery girl?" Shannon asked.

"I just told you, there is no one," I groaned.

"Give me a hint, I won't tell anyone," she whispered.

"No, no hints. There isn't anybody, I should have just kept my mouth shut," I told her, shaking my head in my hands.

"Light hair or dark?" she asked.

"Dark," I responded automatically and groaned in disgust at myself.

Shannon just giggled and nudged me lightly in the ribs. "Slytherin?"

"No," I replied quickly with a curt shake of my head.

"Gryffindor then," she amended. I looked at her curiously and without me even saying a word out loud she answered my question. "Gryffindor and Slytherin are just two sides to the same coin."

"That was vague enough to come from the Headmaster," I noted.

She rolled her eyes and continued to question me and I proceeded to get more and more nervous. "Short hair or long?"

I smiled to himself, as this one would be the cincher. "Long," I said, because Harry's raven locks _were_ long for a boy, but the answer would throw Shannon off the trail.

She scanned the Gryffindor table and hummed to herself as she pondered. "This is hard. Eye color?"

"Green," I replied, "-ish," I added, because I didn't need her to actually figure out that I liked the green eyed Gryffindor Hero.

She looked over the table and luckily Harry's back was to us. "Okay, I give. Who is it?" she asked sweetly.

"Get back to me when you figure it out," I replied, laughing at her severe pout. "So, are you coming to practice tomorrow night?" I asked, attempting and succeeding at distracting her.

"Mhmm, when should I meet you out on the pitch?" she asked.

"We can walk out together," I offered. "We can leave right after Transfiguration and be back by dinner."

"It's a date," she replied with a smile, going back to her meal, and I swallowed thickly.

Did Shannon think of me as more than a friend? I thought back along our time together and grimaced. We _were_ very close, and even Harry thought we were dating, though he was mostly being paranoid. Plus I had just told her that I liked a girl with long dark hair and green eyes, which I suddenly realized matched _her_ description quite well, and I was probably far too quick to say it wasn't a Slytherin.

I silently groaned to myself and nodded at her date comment, blushing slightly. I wasn't sure what to do. With Pansy I always made my lack of interest fairly clear with rude comments and ignoring her completely, but I _did_ like Shannon, just not in the romantic sense, whereas I could barely stand Pansy so I didn't care if her feelings got hurt.

The day drug on as I pondered my new predicament. The boy I wanted I had to keep secret and now the girl I only wanted as a friend liked me as more. What the hell did I do to bring this onto myself?

Oh that's right, I'm Draco Malfoy, son of a Death Eater and all around bad guy. I guess some would say this is precisely what I deserve.

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Shannon was humming softly as we made our way out to the pitch the following night. My Firebolt resting easily on my shoulder and the breeze lapping around my body made me feel more at ease than I had all day.

"It's a little chilly," she noted and slipped her arm around my waist.

Normally this was no big deal, in fact I was used to touching Shannon, we often walked around the castle with arms linked or sat very close whispering conspiratorially with one another, but ever since my revelation earlier I was trying to keep a fair amount of distance between us.

I didn't think it was fair to make her think I wanted to date her when I didn't. I pretended to lose the balance of my broom so I could pull away, and before she could resume her position on my arm I cast a quick warming charm around her.

"Better?" I asked.

She looked at me curiously, and with a slight frown, but nodded. She was a clever girl, she would get the point soon for sure and hopefully we could still be friends.

As we made our way through the entrance to the pitch I showed her the way up to the stands where she could see everything the best and I headed over to the changing rooms. Most of the team was there already and we only had to wait on a couple housemates before we were zipping and looping around the pitch.

I pushed myself to the limit, taking steep dives at breakneck speeds all to get ready for Potter. In just a few months time, Slytherin and Gryffindor would battle for the house cup and dammit if I wouldn't finally beat Harry to the snitch. It was even more important to me now that we were dating, or whatever it was we were doing.

After a little more than and hour the team started whining about being hungry so I let them head back to the changing rooms. I waved at Shannon and flew over to her seat in the Slytherin bleachers. "Ready to go?" I asked.

"Sure," she replied. "You're brilliant on a broom, Draco."

I beamed at her, the thrill of flying making me abandon my earlier concerns about her attachment to me. "Hop on," I told her and hovered closer.

She grinned and climbed onto the back of my broom, clinging to my waist as I flew us slowly to the ground. "Harry Potter was here," she called over the wind whipping around us.

"What?" I asked incredulously. I couldn't believe he would dare to show up at one of our practices. Someone might actually see him and find a way to link us together.

"Yeah. And he was watching _you_ in particular," she said and I could hear her smiling.

"He was probably trying to steal tactical moves," I muttered, knowing for a fact that Harry didn't need to spy on my team. Harry's pure natural skill was enough to usually win the game for his team; loath as I was to admit it.

"Maybe," she mused. "But he looked pretty intent on _something_."

I tensed and landed us quickly on the ground, scanning the pitch for any sign of the Gryffindor Golden Boy.

"He snuck away before you all stopped practicing," she said, watching my expression.

"Who, Potter?" I asked, feigning innocence.

She rolled her eyes and climbed off of the broom. "Yes, who else?"

I merely shrugged. "I should grab a shower and change. Do you want to wait or meet me in the great hall?"

Shannon seemed to think about it for a moment before answering. "I'll meet you in the Great Hall," she responded at last.

I nodded and waved as I walked toward the showers. Most of the other Slytherins had either left or were close to leaving when I walked in, and by the time I had stripped and stepped under the hot spray of water the room was empty.

I loved the feel of a hot shower after a long fly in the cool autumn breeze. The feel of slowly thawing from chest to fingertips was exhilarating. As I turned off the spray I felt the shock of a cold hand on my arse and I whipped around angrily only to be greeted with piercing green eyes and thick black curls.

I relaxed at once as Harry pulled me against him and kissed me deeply. The feel of his soft robes against my wet naked skin sent a shiver down my spine. "You are so hot," he whispered against my lips as he trailed icy fingertips along my torso and sides making me squirm.

I couldn't help but blush as I realized just how exposed I really was to his probing emerald gaze. "It's hardly fair that only one of us is naked," told him with a pout.

"You're right," he replied with a smile, but made no move to strip, so I smirked and started taking care of it myself.

Slowly I removed his robe and shirt and let them fall to the still wet floor, marveling at his tanned and chiseled chest. I kept my eyes locked on his as I unbuckled and slid his trousers from his hips and when I reached for the band of his underwear I found none.

My smile reached all the way up to my eyes as the realization that I now had Harry Potter naked and all to myself crashed into me like the Hogwarts Express with no breaks. I took a step back and drank him in, every line and every curve was flawless, even the scars grazing his beautiful sun-kissed flesh were just another uniquely lovely thing about him.

I pushed him into the white tile wall and pressed our entire lengths together, skin to skin, head to toe I could feel him; every inch. It was like lightning striking between us and I watched as his brilliant eyes glazed over with lust and I leapt at his mouth, devouring every bit of him.

When my mouth left his it was only to kiss hot trails along his neck and chest, and as I kneeled in front of him I decided to finally return yesterday's favor. His cock was flushed crimson and purple and as I lowered my face into the crease of his legs I could smell the unique fragrance of Harry; that exotic mix of pice, grass and sweet berries that made me want to bite him, so I did. I bit him on the thigh and he jumped and hissed. I chuckled lowly to myself as the hiss turned into a moan as I ran the flat of my tongue along the top of his prick, swirling it once around his head before moving back to look up into his face.

His eyes were boring into mine, piercing green orbs that could probably see straight into my soul. I wondered briefly what he might see there and if he would stay with me once he saw it.

I kept my eyes locked with his as I took him into my mouth for the first time, slowly letting in an inch at a time until I couldn't fit anymore. He tried to hold my gaze but eventually failed, his head lolling back and his eyes fluttering closed.

It took time to find a rhythm that seemed to make him writhe, and after a few strokes my jaw began to tingle and ache. I paid no mind to any of that though, because Harry was starting to tense and moan above me, and all I could think about was how sexy he was and that he was all mine. I dug my fingernails into is arse cheeks and he threaded his fingers into my hair, thrusting harshly one last time into my mouth as his orgasm hit and his body shuddered its release.

I sat back on my heels and slowly rose to my feet, feeling the ache from both my position on the floor and the one in my jaw.

"Fuck," Harry whispered, his eyes still closed and his head leaning against the wall.

"Already? I thought you might be tired," I teased.

Harry opened one eye and shook his head. "Never too tired for that," he corrected.

I chuckled and kissed him roughly, letting him taste himself on my tongue as he had done to me the day before.

"Shit, Draco, I'm sorry. I should have warned you first," he added with a blush. "We hadn't actually discussed it."

I chuckled and shook my head. "You think I couldn't tell it was coming?" I asked with a grin.

Harry blushed again and wound his nimble fingers around my cock, but I shook my head. "It's my turn to bail."

"What?" He asked with a frown.

"I promised Shannon I would meet her for dinner. She'll worry if I don't show," I told him.

He frowned and stepped back, folding his arms across his chest. "I thought you said she was just a friend. But she comes to your practice, she sits with you in class and at every meal, she even holds your arm between classes. She seems more like your girlfriend then I do," he muttered.

I smiled wickedly. "Is that what you are? My girlfriend?" I asked teasingly, remembering my conversation with Shannon the previous day.

Harry rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. It's not fair. I think about you all day, dream about you all night, but she's the one who gets to spend all her time with you. Are you sure she doesn't want more?"

I grimaced at the question and ignored it leaning in to kiss Harry once more. "Do you really think about me all day?" I asked seductively in his ear.

"You know I do, and quit changing the subject," Harry demanded. "Does Shannon have designs on you?"

"I think she might," I finally admitted with a shrug. "I like her though, and I don't want her to be angry with me, so I'm trying to be easy about letting her know I'm not interested."

"And you're not, right? Interested, I mean?" he asked, looking nervous.

I trailed my still damp fingertips along his still naked body and shook my head. "No, I'm not. Only one person holds my romantic interest and it's not Shannon."

Harry looked at me innocently and batted his eyelashes in jest. "Oh, and who does?"

I kissed him, and in doing so poured everything I felt for him through my lips and into his mouth, doing everything I could to make him believe it, whatever it was. Part of me knew I already loved the boy, but the rest of me knew that I had no grasp on what love really meant, so I dared not say it out loud.

When we broke apart Harry was smiling contentedly. "Are you sure you have to go?" he asked.

I nodded and pulled reluctantly away from him, casting a quick drying charm on his dampened clothes still strewn on the floor. "I do."

"Can't you just tell her you got sick?" he asked before faking a cough and grinning at me.

"How about I tell her I'm not interested in her instead?" I offered, handing him his now dry clothing.

His face lit up and his smile was infectious. "How do you plan to do that?"

I shrugged; feeling genuinely perplexed as Harry slowly redressed himself. "How would you let Granger down if she decided she liked _you_ as more than a friend?"

Harry shuddered slightly and grimaced. "Thank Merlin that never happened. Good luck," he offered unhelpfully and winked, leaving the shower and waving one last time before slipping under his invisibility cloak.

"Prat," I shouted after him but was only answered with a soft chuckle from the exit.

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"Potter's watching you again," Shannon whispered halfway through dinner.

I let my eyes flicker up to meet his and gave him a pitiful look, to which he had to turn away from before he laughed.

I still hadn't figured out the best way to tell Shannon that I wasn't inclined to date her and that I only wanted to be friends. She was so sweet and thoughtful that I hated to upset her, which went against everything I used to be. It was official, Harry had ruined me. I was so gods damn sentimental I should be re-sorted into Gryffindor, or worse, Hufflepuff.

"What do you think he wants?" she pressed when I didn't respond.

"Who knows?" I replied with a shrug. "Probably trying to cast wandless magic at my head."

She snickered and nodded. "Right, I'm sure that's exactly what it is."

Stabbing my Sheppard's pie with a fork I continued to look up every now and then to see if Harry was still looking at me. He had situated himself on the other side of the table tonight so that he could look up at me without being very obvious but at present he was otherwise occupied listening to Ginevra and Ron bicker about her latest boyfriend. I watched as the youngest Weasel looked at Harry every time she mentioned her new bloke, and how frustrated she got that Harry didn't notice her feelings about him.

"Because he's mine," I muttered to myself.

"Sorry?" Shannon asked, leaning in to hear me better.

"Nothing," I responded and placed a bite of food in my mouth in order to keep from explaining further.

Dinner went lousy as I tried to both talk to and avoid Shannon all at once, and then the evening got worse when we got back to the common room. There were only a smattering of people that hadn't yet gone to bed and they were all otherwise preoccupied as Shannon and I lounged on the giant sofa by the fireplace.

"So," she began as she looked across at me and pushed her glasses back, another thing about her that reminded me of Potter. "I hear rumor that there will be a Yule ball this year."

I swallowed thickly, dreading the words that would next come from her mouth, and my response, which would effectively end our friendship. "I think so, yes."

"Are you taking your new love interest?" she asked demurely and mockingly at the same time.

"About that… Shannon, there's something I've been meaning to tell you," I started, still not sure what I was actually going to say.

"What about?" she asked, looking genuinely curious.

"I'm just not really interested in you that way. You're a brilliant friend and I love you to death, but I don't love you, love you… does that make sense?" I asked, my face fiery red with embarrassment. I felt like I had taken a cue from Weasley.

She blinked once, and then several more times before bursting into a fit of giggles.

I didn't know what to say, or what to do for that response. I had predicted a great many rude words and gestures to counter, but laughter had never been an option. Did she not believe me? "The thing is: I'm gay," I blurted, never having intended anyone at the school to have that particular bit of information, let alone someone I was effectively breaking up with but her giggles threw me off guard.

The laughter subsided slightly and Shannon had tears in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and tried to catch her breath. "I know, Draco."

"I never meant to hurt you, or to lead you on, or… what? What do you mean you _know_?" I asked her incredulously.

"Draco, come one. It's not as though you're the height of macho masculinity," she mused, still giggling.

"Wha- you're serious? You just assumed I was gay?" I asked her, slightly offended even though her assumption proved true.

"Not exactly. I got little hints here and there. It's nothing to be ashamed of," she told me as she settled back into the sofa.

"Obviously you haven't met my father," I muttered, thinking he would have an altogether different opinion of what was and wasn't shameful. "So you knew?"

Shannon nodded and grinned widely. "Since I met you."

"Then why were you trying to get me ask you to the Yule Ball?" I asked, genuinely perplexed.

Shannon rolled her eyes and kicked me lightly in the shin. "I wasn't. I was trying to get you to tell me if you were inviting Potter."

"Potter? Why in Merlin's name would you think that?" I stuttered, looking away.

"Because I'm observant," she offered. "It's pretty obvious you're attracted to him, and if the way he was staring at you earlier today is any indication, he feels the same."

"How was he staring at me?" I asked and then immediately regretted it.

"Ha! Caught you. I knew you liked Potter. Oh, I am going to have so much fun setting the two of you up," she boasted.

"No need," I admitted.

"What do you mean? I have to; you're my best friend now, that's what friends do for one another. Plus, it's only fair since I'm going to make you help me write a letter to Jean Claude back in France. I plan to invite him to the Yule Ball," she giggled.

I laughed; utterly relieved that Shannon and I were still friends and that suddenly I had someone I could share my Harry secret with. "No. I mean no need, because there really is no need. We're already together," I told her.

Her green eyes widened behind her glasses and I smiled at the reaction. "Seems there are some things I didn't know about you. Sneaky Slytherin," she teased.

"Apparently so," I replied with a smirk.

"How long?" she asked excitedly.

"Technically since the day you arrived," I told her, blushing slightly.

"I guess I'm your good luck charm," she replied with a grin. "So, are you taking him to the ball?"

"Merlin no," I shouted. "I can't even tell anyone else about him. If my father knew…" I groaned. "Well, I don't even want to think what could happen if he found out."

Shannon rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Draco. What's the worst that could happen?"

"You mean aside from Voldemort killing me directly, or worse, putting me under the Imperious Curse in order make me bring him Harry and then killing us both? Nothing much," I responded sarcastically.

Her eyes went wide again, looking horrified and I wondered if not liking her romantically was actually not the news I should have been worried about telling her. "Is it true, then? That your father is a Death Eater?" she whispered.

I nodded. "And Voldemort's right hand man. In fact, last I heard, he's staying at the Manor indefinitely."

She put her hand on my knee and I felt a sudden rush of relief as I seemingly dodged breaking her friendship twice tonight. "Draco, that's awful. You should go to the Ministry, or to Dumbledore and get protection."

I laughed harshly. "Right. As if anyone would offer protection to me. No, the best way to be with Potter and keep us both safe is to keep it a secret," I assured her.

She nodded solemnly and pulled me into a hug. "I'll keep your secret as long as you want me to, but you have to know that it's going to come out eventually right?"

"I know," I replied with a sigh. "But I'd rather cross that bridge when I'm being thrown over it."

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Authors Note: I was inspired by Kimiko-chan001 yesterday for today's gift. For reviewing, I'm handing out 'turn on toffees' from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. They leave a warm gooey feeling, but not in your mouth.


	7. Hindsight

Authors Note: Many thanks to my beta Shannon

Chapter 7 Hindsight

The skies outside the castle matched my eyes, a deep overcast gray, but if you only paid attention to the magical sky in the Great Hall, you could pretend that it was a bright and sunny day, which was how I felt.

I've never been a particularly cheerful person, not even as a young child. I was never over exuberant, always calm and well mannered, I never even ran through the manor, not even once. It was something my mother always complimented me on.

But now, it was like I saw everything from a different light, I wanted to enjoy things; I wanted to discard my responsibilities and just spend every minute with Harry. It was so un-Slytherin, so un-Malfoy, yet it felt brilliant. Not that I would get my way, in fact since the night before the only thing I had seen of Harry was the back of his head, but that would change soon.

"So are you going to tell him?" Shannon asked beside me, pulling me from my wandering thoughts and my lingering gaze on a certain Gryffindor student.

"That you know?" I asked, and she nodded. "I should."

"Do you think he'll be mad?" she asked, poking at her lunch, which consisted of mashed potatoes and a meat pie that she looked very suspicious of.

I shrugged, taking a bite of my own meat pie. "I don't see how he could be. I mean, you guessed before I really told you anything, and he's already warned me that Granger is bound to find out soon enough."

The though made me smile, and Shannon looked at me curiously. "What?"

"You're more clever than Granger," I announced with a self-satisfied grin.

"So," Shannon scoffed. "She's in Gryffindor, not Ravenclaw. No huge feat there."

"Oh, but it is. She's been hailed as the cleverest witch of her age," I told her, suddenly thrilled that my friend was better than Potter's. I had to be able to beat him at something after all.

"Well then, Yay Me," she replied without the amount of enthusiasm it deserved, but I let it go.

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On our way from lunch I bumped into Harry roughly and slipped a bit of parchment in his pocket with a note to meet me after Transfigurations in the Room of Requirement. It would be amusing to see what popped up inside when we both wanted access.

"Watch it, ferret," Harry spat, glaring at me in a way that anyone else would take as fury, but only I knew it meant so much more than that.

"_You_ watch it, scarhead," I shot back with my trademark sneer and slipped away with Shannon, who mumbled something about silly boys and I pretended to ignore her.

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I brought Shannon with me after Transfigurations and though she was reluctant to accompany me on my rendezvous with Potter, but I convinced her it would be better if she were there when I told Harry about her knowing.

I paced in front of the doorway three times chanting 'I need Harry' and the door appeared out of thin air, much to Shannon's delight.

The room was all white, from the marble floors to the expansive cathedral ceilings, including the furniture, which was ornate and French in design.

"A bed?" Shannon chuckled beside me, and Harry turned around at the sound of her voice.

He had been lounging on a chaise in front of the fireplace, one leg thrown haphazardly over the arm, but now was suddenly on guard, wand drawn but not raised. "Tell me you didn't set me up," he demanded, looking hurt and furious.

"I would never," I told him honestly.

"Then what is she doing here?" he asked defensively, pointing at Shannon.

"Remember how you told me that your friend was going to figure out that we're together?" I asked him.

"Yes," he replied slowly.

"Well _my friend_ figured it out first," I boasted to a unison of rolled eyes from both Shannon and Harry.

"So you know?" he asked Shannon directly, who nodded and went to lean against the bed.

"I confronted him over it last night, wanting to know if he was going to ask you to the upcoming dance," she informed him.

"And I assume he told you that no one can know?" Harry asked impatiently.

Shannon nodded and folded he arms across her chest. "I'll keep Draco's secret," she huffed. "I would have even kept yours if you weren't such a prat," she added.

I snickered and Harry winced at the comment. "I'm sorry I snubbed you yesterday," Harry said at last. "I was jealous and out of line."

"Jealous of me?" she asked incredulously, laughter threatening to bubble through her lips.

Harry nodded and ran a hand through his already unruly hair. "Yeah, it sounds ridiculous now, but I was. Sorry," he offered again.

Shannon looked over at me, and must have seen how badly I wanted them to get along, because she extended her hand for Harry to shake, and this time Harry took it without hesitation and with that crooked grin I loved to see on his handsome face.

"So I guess I'll be keeping your secret now, too," she said at last.

"It really is the same secret," I told her, not understanding what she meant.

"Yes and no," she replied, her eyes still on Harry.

"You seem too nice to be in Slytherin," Harry noted curiously.

Shannon laughed and let his hand drop. "Slytherin is in my blood, but blood doesn't have to dictate how you treat others."

"I like her," Harry told me, and I smiled.

"Yeah. I think I'll keep her," I responded with a gentle nudge to Shannon's ribs.

After all the heartwarming gooeyness I just wanted to snog Harry senseless, and my astute friend Shannon must have picked up on that fact because she squeezed my hand and smiled. "I'm going to leave you two alone, when you get back you have to help me write that letter to Jean Claude," she ordered.

I nodded and grinned. "Of course. We'll have him kissing your feet."

She rolled her eyes and headed for the door. "I just want him to come to the dance. We'll worry about feet kissing later."

Harry laughed and as soon as the door shut, he was pulling me into a searing kiss.

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Harry and I lounged happily in the room of requirement, each of us basking in post coital bliss. Harry's fingers whispered across my bare back and I smiled over at him. It had been two weeks since Shannon's revelation and we hadn't yet had sex, not really, but we often found time to sneak away for an hour or so and pleasure each other in other ways.

It made me wonder sometimes what we were waiting for, not that I wanted to rush things. I was scared; terrified in fact, to take it to the next level, and I was curious if Harry felt the same.

Otherwise I had no complaints. Harry was perfection, and we had found an easy balance between spending time together and avoidance of any topics regarding the war. I felt like I was his escape from all that, and maybe I was.

He would sometimes ask me about my family, and I would tell him mostly about my childhood and then he would tell me about his. We did homework together, we spent the nights together sometimes and we found it easier than anticipated to keep it all a secret.

Harry flipped me over and began placing searing kisses along my neck and chest, reaching down to rub his fingertips over my prick, easing it back into its more lively state. "Already?" I teased, savoring the feel of his hand.

"I can never seem to get enough of you," he purred.

"You know, you're so good at all of this that I'm beginning to wonder if you didn't have practice," I muttered with a smile.

Harry's entire face paled except for his cheeks, which turned a vivid pink. My eyes went wide and I scrambled across the bed, putting space between us. "It was nothing serious," he assured, as if that fact would make it any better. "It was just experiments and it was way before I knew you liked me."

"Who?" I demanded. Was there more than one? Did he have feelings for any of them? Had they gone farther then Harry and I? I needed to know.

"Seamus and Neville," Harry admitted at once.

I wanted to puke. "Longbottom? He's barely even a wizard!" I shouted.

Harry's face went from an embarrassed shade of red to a very angry hue instead. "Listen, I don't talk about your friends, I even apologized to Shannon, you should show me the same respect."

Rushing to get dressed I shot him a dirty look. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, ignoring his demand to be nice to his friends.

"It's not like you've disclosed your sexual past, Draco," Harry huffed, making no move to cover himself, which was braver than I felt at the moment. Even with trousers on I felt exposed under his heavy green gaze. I wouldn't have been able to fight with him in the nude; I would have felt far too vulnerable.

"That's because I don't have one," I bit out grudgingly.

"Nonsense," Harry replied, rolling his eyes.

I turned around, letting his penetrating stare fall on my back instead. I couldn't look at him. I was angry that he had kept things from me, but at the moment I was far angrier with myself for having no experience to counter his own. Was that why we hadn't gone further? Could he tell my lack of experience and knew I'd be a terrible lay?

"I've never gone past a fleeting kiss with Pansy in second year," I admitted.

"Nothing?" Harry asked incredulously. "That's hard to believe, Draco."

"Why? Because, I seem like such a whore?" I spat, still not looking at him.

"No," he replied with a sigh. "Because this has been so easy,"

"What?" I asked, whirling around to see his dejected face. "What part of this has been easy?"

Harry sighed again and leveled the full weight of his brilliant emerald eyes on mine. "I just mean you haven't seemed to change your mind even once. The entire time we've been together you seem to take it as a given that you're gay, I just assumed someone had taught you that fact the same way I learned," he replied with a shrug.

"And how did you learn?" I asked, not really sure if I wanted to know the answer.

"Over a bottle of firewhiskey in the boy's dorm one night," Harry confessed. "I mean, I always knew I was attracted to other men, well, attracted to you anyway, but I was also attracted to women. Cho for instance," he added. "How did you find out then, if not through trial and error?"

I couldn't very well tell him about my time travel experience as the trigger, but before that I hadn't given it thought either way really. I had known I wasn't particularly attracted to any of the girls at school, but I had decided that was simply because they were all inferior in some way. "You," I finally whispered. "I didn't know until you."

Which was mostly the truth.

"Really?" Harry asked, gaping slightly.

"Why is that so difficult to comprehend?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest, and glaring at him incredulously.

Harry crawled closer, sidling up next to where I was standing at the edge of the bed. "You're just so delectable I can't believe no one grabbed you up before me, even if it was just a fling."

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't completely contain my smile. Flattery really will get you everywhere with me. "No one else is good enough," I informed him, and he smiled, leaning in as if to kiss me, but instead he just whispered against my lips.

"Can I be forgiven for indulging in my confusion? Not everyone can be as sure minded as you," he added.

"I'm not," I admitted. "I have no idea what I'm doing half the time, and the other half I spend wondering why I've changed so thoroughly since I met you."

"Maybe this is just who you were always supposed to be," Harry offered, a knowing look in his eye.

I would have been thrilled to think that there was a destiny or prophecy written about some transcendent love that we would share, but the fact was, I never really believed in any of that, not really. "Maybe you're just contagious," I countered and he laughed lightly and nodded.

"If that's what you prefer, I can live with it," he teased and I let him kiss me, his lips a soft reminder that I was quickly falling in love with the Gryffindor hero, the one who was supposed to save us all. But I didn't want to share, so maybe I'd only let him save me.

"I love you," Harry murmured before blushing deeply and looking deep into my eyes.

I'm sure if I could have seen me, my eyes would have been round silver saucers at his proclamation, and though I was thinking something very similar in the same moment, my mouth couldn't seem to find the words to reciprocate. "I-" I began, but nothing of substance slipped out.

Harry sighed and sat back on his heels, waiting for me to say something, anything.

"I have to go," I blurted, and grabbed my robe, throwing it on and quickly escaping the room, escaping Harry's broken smile and the sadness emanating from his eyes.

I ran all the way down to the dungeons before stopping and leaning against the wall. Unshed tears burned in my eyes, but I blinked them away. I didn't deserve to cry, I didn't deserve to be sad at all when it was me that ran away.

I turned to go back, almost running all the way up to the seventh floor once again, but I knew he wouldn't have stayed, probably going back to his own common room. I would have left right away if it were me, and rightly so.

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As soon as I walked into the Great Hall for dinner, I scanned the Gryffindor table for Harry, but he didn't show up at dinner that night. Shannon had been reluctantly putting up with my bad mood since I got back from the room of requirement and had thankfully not pressed me to know why she had to do so. I could have beaten my own face in for running out on Harry like I did, but it was done, and now all I could manage to do is wallow in self-pity.

Yet again I was stabbing at my meal and Shannon must have finally had enough, because she shot me the most scathing look and jerked me by my elbow and led me quickly from the Great Hall.

"What did you do?" she demanded as soon as we were in the empty common room.

"Why do you assume it was something _I _did?" I asked, already on the offensive. Sure it was something I did, but why did everyone have to take Harry's side all the time?

"Because I know you, Draco Malfoy, and you've been looking guilty all evening," she told me. "So spill."

I crinkled my nose at her words, and sagged into our favorite sofa. "He told me he loved me," I told her, sighing and waiting for her reaction.

"Ah. I see. What did you say? Obviously not something good," she reasoned accurately.

"I left," I informed her, not able to meet her gaze.

A sharp stinging hex landed square on my shoulder and made me wince and scowl at her. "Hey!" I shouted, to no avail.

"You deserve much worse," she told me. "You never, _ever_ just run out on someone when they confess something like that. You could have just told him that you needed more time to get to that point," she chastised.

"But I _do_ love him," I confessed.

Another stinging hex hit me in the leg and I jumped up from the couch, trying to put more space between us.

"Then that just makes you more of an arse. Why couldn't you just tell him that?" she shouted.

"I don't know!" I shouted back, feeling ridiculous for fighting with my boyfriend and my best friend over the same thing.

"So then you'll just apologize tomorrow and tell him you love him with all your icy cold heart and everything will be fine," she instructed.

"My _icy cold heart_?" I asked with a raised eyebrow and amusement written clearly on my face.

"Yes. I can't believe you, walking out that way," she huffed.

"He took me off guard! I didn't know what to say," I amended.

"Just promise you'll fix it tomorrow," she ordered.

"I promise, so long as he'll talk to me, I'll tell him I love him and fix everything tomorrow," I promised, and I would, because I hated hurting Harry and I hated being without him.

"Boys," she muttered to herself, rolling her eyes.

"Are you sure you're not deflecting?" I asked suddenly. "How did Jean Claude reply to your invitation?"

"This isn't about me," she replied defensively.

"How did he reply?" I repeated more firmly.

"He didn't," she huffed. "Happy now?"

"Of course I'm not happy, stop being ridiculous," I chastised. "Would you like me to hex his face off?" I asked.

"Would you?" she replied, batting her eyelashes with a very damsel in distress look on her face.

"Anything for you," I offered and pulled her into a hug. "Is he bigger than me?" I asked as an afterthought.

She just laughed and pulled away, taking her spot on the sofa and pulling our books out. "Homework."

"I'd rather face Potter," I moaned, but she rolled her eyes and passed me my Care for Magical Creatures book anyhow. Although I didn't get much studying in, it gave me plenty of time to think of how I would approach Harry the next day.

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The following morning I had my apology being chanted as a mantra in my mind as I went down to breakfast. "I'm sorry, Harry. I _do_ love you, I was just afraid," I whispered to myself on the way to my seat in the Great Hall. He would certainly see how much those words cost me, and hopefully forgive me instantly---or at least with minimal groveling. A Malfoy rarely gets on his knees for anyone, but for Harry I would make an exception, I mean technically I had already.

Harry was there, but wouldn't look up at me as I walked passed. He looked like he hadn't slept at all and that theory made me feel even worse for running out on him the day before than I already felt. Shannon squeezed my arm in encouragement and I smiled at her, taking my seat at the Great Hall and trying to catch Harry's eye to let him know that I wanted to talk.

I took a single bite of my blueberry muffin and it was the last thing I remembered doing before I saw it.

By _it_ I meant my father's pristine and well-trained eagle owl, Cygnus. It landed gracefully on the basket of fruit in front of me and Shannon attempted to pet the bird as I stared dumbly at it, but it evaded her hand each time.

Did my father find out about Potter and I, or were these just simple directions as to how I was supposed to spend the Christmas holiday, which was right around the corner?

"You'll never know if you don't open it," Shannon told me, as if reading the concern on my face. "It's not a howler anyhow," she offered, not realizing that my father would never send me a howler. Unlike the Weasley's, the Malfoy family kept their dirty laundry inside their tight knit family, not shouted about in the middle of the Great Hall.

I reluctantly removed the scroll and Cygnus flew away in the same instant, so I knew it was a direction of some sort, and not something that required an immediate response, not that this particular bit of information was even remotely helpful

"Would you like me to read it first?" she offered.

I gave her a weak smile, but shook my head, cracking the seal and feeling the identification magic waft over me.

After taking a deep breath. I unrolled the scroll and read it's looping script once, and then twice more, not able to believe it.

"I should have paid attention, I should have learned from their mistakes, not made the same ones," I muttered painfully, thinking of Orion and Edward.

"What does it say," Shannon prodded.

I just shook my head and handed her the scroll, unable to say out loud the tragedy that was written upon it.

She scanned it quickly and frowned. "Oh Draco," she sighed suddenly. "I'm so sorry."

I nodded, feeling the knot in my chest tighten as my apology to Harry slipped away. What was I supposed to say now? 'I love you, Harry, but I have to marry Astoria Greengrass in eight months time' didn't really seem to be a proper apology.

"I had known it was coming, I hadn't thought about it for weeks now, but I knew this letter would be arriving this year and deep down I knew this thing with Harry could only be temporary. I don't know why I let myself get so involved," I berated myself.

"Draco, you're in love, you can't control these things," she assured me. "Certainly your father would under-" she began but I cut her off with a scowl and she rolled her eyes. "Okay, so he _wouldn't_ understand, but you're an adult now Draco, you don't have to listen to him."

"What would you do if it were you? Your parents are both pureblood Slytherin's, surely you're going to have an arranged marriage of your own?" I asked her.

She shrugged lightly. "They'll arrange it if I haven't chosen someone of my own by twenty-one."

"And what if you fall for someone they wouldn't accept?" I pressed.

"Then I would have a difficult decision to make, as do you right now, but the pressures of a pureblood girl are different than those of a pureblood heir, especially when you're an only child," she conceded. "My parents have a boy to carry out their name, so they put much less scrutiny on me and whom I date. In fact, that's the reason he was sent to Durmstrang, so that he wouldn't even be tempted."

"Why wouldn't he be tempted there?" I asked, curiously.

"Most of the students are boys, and the few girls that do attend are…" her voice trailed off as she shuddered and grimaced, causing me to smile in spite of the awful letter.

"So what are you going to do?" she asked, breaking through my distraction.

That was the two thousand galleon question.

Do I make amends with Harry only to break his heart again in a few months, or do I just let him go now and save him the additional pain? I hated myself for falling into the same trap that Orion had, and even seeing first hand how badly it hurt to lose Harry, I still went for it. I still tried to create a loving relationship where there should have only existed bitter hatred.

I must be some sort of masochist, or at least England's most dense Slytherin.

"The only thing I _can_ do," I told her. "I have to end things with Potter once and for all, which shouldn't be too difficult because he already hates me from yesterday."

I ignored her narrowed eyes and took another bite of my muffin as I ran through a new mantra in my head. "I don't love you, Harry, and I never will," I lied to even myself as I whispered the new line I would give to Harry, the words that might break him today, but will be better for him to hear in the long run.

Authors Note:Because of the move I'm falling slightly behind with my writing. I have no other chapters written after this, but so far the poll has this as one of the favorites right now, so I'll be focusing on trying to catch it up next week. The poll will be open on my yahoo group until Tuesday if anyone else would like to join and vote.


	8. Talking is Overrated

Authors Note: Many thanks to my beta Shannon, who not only checks over the chapters, but also requested and stars in the fic. I'm sorry this missed the posting yesterday. The internet install did not go as planned Saturday and I still have no service (hopefully it will go up today) and so I'm having to post the chapter on a borrowed system, which means, loathe as I am to say it, Memoirs will most likely not go up tonight. I know, I know and I'm very very sorry, but we'll get back on track later this week!

Chapter 8 Talking is Overrated

Only one day had passed since I realized that my fate as Malfoy heir was sealed, and that I had to break things off with Harry. My mind was still in turmoil over it.

"I can't do it," I moaned, flopping onto the fuzzy green sofa in the common room. _Our_ sofa.

"Of course you can't do it," Shannon mused. "You love him," she added, as if that needed the clarity of being said out loud.

"I'm perfectly _capable_ of breaking things off with him, I just can't get him to talk to me," I corrected.

Three times that day since breakfast I had tried to corner Potter and tell him that we were over, through, kaput, and each time he deftly avoided me, obviously still angry that I had run out on his 'I love you'.

"Good," she replied, her chin raised slightly in defiance. "I don't think you should break up with him and maybe if Harry ignores you long enough you'll realize that you're an ignorant prat for even thinking about it."

"Why don't you tell me what you really think of me?" I replied sarcastically, rubbing my fingers into my temples.

"You love him, and you'd belong in St. Mungo's ward for the criminally insane if you let him go," she commented. "He's smart, he's kind, he's hot-" she started, counting out each brilliant feature on her fingertips, but I cut her off with a wave.

"Yes, yes, we all know Harry's perfect, I know this better than anyone, but that changes nothing between us. He's water and I'm oil, we don't mix," I pointed out.

"More like he's unicorn horn and your boomslang skin," she muttered.

"Hey, whose friend_ are_ you, here?" I asked defensively.

"I'm _your _friend, which is why it's my job to point out when you're about to make a huge mistake," she replied. "Plus it's easier to stop you before you mess everything up as opposed to having to comfort you while you whine about missing Harry."

"Malfoy's don't whine," I corrected her. "They brood maybe, but never whine."

"I'll hold you to that," Shannon replied with narrowed unbelieving eyes and picked up her Transfiguration homework, indicating that our conversation was about to be overheard by a troupe of third year Slytherin's entering the common room.

I wanted to scream and tell them all to sod off, but that would have done little good so I just sighed and started in on my own homework, silently chastising myself when I realized I was drawing little lightning bolts all over my parchment.

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That night gave me little in the way of sleep and instead decided to grace me with nightmares of killing curses and my desperate but failed attempts to keep Harry from the receiving end of them.

It wasn't pleasant, and even less pleasant was waking up from one of them with an invisible hand pressed over my mouth. My eyes went wide as I fought for air, or to scream or for both, but I was denied until mussed black hair emerged from under an invisibility cloak and Harry had ensured that I recognized him.

"What are you doing here?" I hissed the moment he let his hand drop from my face.

"I'm here to apologize," he said simply as he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. One of these days I was going to purchase him glasses that fit. No, no, that's not right; I can't buy gifts for boys I'm breaking up with.

"Wait, what do you have to apologize for?" I asked, very confused.

"I've been avoiding you," he said, "or haven't you noticed?" he added, looking a touch hurt.

I rolled my eyes and sat up a little. "Of course I noticed, but I just assumed you were still mad about my running out on you yesterday."

"I was, but I realized that wasn't very fair of me. I moved to fast, I see that now. I've just had longer to think of you as a romantic interest and well… I blurted. I'm sorry, I tend to do that sometimes," he added as if I couldn't have figured so much out already. "You really don't have to say it back, I just wanted you to know. I'm so fucking in love with you it's ridiculous, but I understand if you're not there yet," he finished with a sigh, his fingers digging nervously into my blanket.

Fuck.

What was I supposed to say to that? 'That's nice Harry, have fun being in love with me, I'll be off to get married to a stranger now,' probably wouldn't go over very well. How could I crush the man I love when he snuck into the snake pit just to open up to me again, just to give me-someone who clearly doesn't deserve it- a second chance?

So I said what anyone would if they could stare into those deep, trusting green eyes. "I do love you, Harry."

"I'm serious," Harry said. "You don't have to say it if-" he began but I cut him off with a firm kiss, which I found was always the preferable method to stop him from prattling.

The kiss went farther than I had planned, but truth be told I could never really help myself when it came to Harry's lips, and soon enough we were tugging at each other's clothes and groping the bodies beneath them.

It wasn't until my eyes fell on the letter from my father, still taunting me from the nightstand, that I stopped him. "We'll get caught," I lied, knowing that no one would ever discover us in my room.

But he just nodded and sighed. "Room of Requirement tomorrow morning?" he asked, this voice thick with lust.

"I have to study for potions," I fibbed, trying to buy myself some more time to figure something out. "After dinner?" I offered.

Harry sagged and pouted but shrugged. "Okay. I suppose you're busy during our free period tomorrow?"

I nodded; not letting him know that I would be busy trying to find out what Orion did when he got his letter. I was tempted to tell him all about it- our shared past- but knew he would be furious that I stole the time turner from one of his friends in the first place, and probably find plenty of other reasons to hate me once he heard the whole story.

With one final lingering kiss I shooed him from the room and collapsed back into bed, trying to think of something aside from betraying and leaving my dear sweet Harry.

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The golden time turner was a heavy weight in my palm.

Not the physical burden of it, but the mental one. Messing with time was a tricky thing, very dangerous and potentially deadly. I had to be so careful not to alter or influence anyone or anything so that I didn't return to different future than the one I had left. Merlin forbid, I do something that would make Harry or I cease to exist, or worse, become related.

Clearly Orion didn't stay with Edward, I wasn't going back to prove or disprove that fact, as my family tree showed Orion and Isabella married and they had three children, two boys and one girl before they died. The eldest son, Leo, went on to marry Patricia Parkinson and they had Abraxas who had my father. So obviously Orion broke things off with his Potter, but I needed to know how he did it, what caused him to choose the Malfoy name over love, and what happened when he did.

I was waiting until after I got back to tell Shannon about my trip, as I hadn't even told her about the time turner yet and it would take too long to explain. Not to mention I was eager to see my ancestor once more and learn what I could. What I learned from his past just might affect my future. They say that history has a way of repeating itself, and I clearly couldn't argue that fact.

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This time I was prepared for the woozy feeling that accosted me as I looked around the Hogwarts of the past. It was still amazing how time seemed to stand still in this place, as if the rest of the world grew and evolved but Hogwarts and the people inside it never did.

I had set the time turner to take me back to just after the day I had been there the first time. Orion wasn't as easy to spot as before, and after wandering the corridors for several hours I actually came across Edward first. He was looking around him suspiciously, before ducking into a nearby classroom and as I walked closer to get better look, he reached out and grabbed me by my robes and pulled me into the empty classroom with him.

It was startling, and I almost laughed as I thought of Harry having done the same to me, and how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, or even the great, great, great grand-tree.

It was then that I realized that I had been so eager to get here that I hadn't taken the proper precautions and forgot to set the disillusionment charm, which sobered me right up. As Edward, nearly the spitting image of Harry, had me pinned against the wall, I wasn't sure how badly that slip would cost me, but I knew it would be have to be something unless I was very careful.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" he asked suddenly, his voice carrying an inflection to his words that I had never heard on Harry before.

"I haven't been," I told him truthfully, though maybe Orion had been, and if he was then I wanted to know why as well.

"Is this about Isabella?" he asked. "Because I thought we talked about that."

"Did we?" I asked, feigning ignorance, or rudeness, I wasn't really sure.

Harry rolled his dark hazel eyes, which made me miss Harry's beautiful green orbs. I wondered briefly what he would say if he caught me pinned by his ancestral doppelganger, and was slightly saddened that he could never really know.

"You know we did. You were going to tell your father that you would not marry Isabella, and then I didn't hear from you again," he growled, and apparently striking fear in others was a Potter heritage passed on through blood, because I was genuinely afraid. Not only was I afraid of what he could do to me, I was afraid of what my answers could do to the future.

Clearly Orion had either talked to his father and been forced into the marriage regardless, or decided against confronting his father altogether, but which one he had no idea. Nevertheless it seemed my ancestor had just as hard a time breaking things off with his Potter as I did mine.

It did not bode well for me if Orion couldn't figure it out, and he didn't even have a Dark Lord looming over his head.

"I really should get to class," I muttered, hoping it was in fact class time and not a weekend.

"You're going to marry her, aren't you?" he asked me, looking more hurt than I had ever seen another human being look. Even though this boy was a stranger to me, I could imagine that same look on Harry's face, could imagine his piercing green eyes nearly welling over with tears; could practically feel his lips twitch in a silent sob.

"Ask me tomorrow," I said at last, not knowing what else to do. I couldn't say yes, I couldn't say no, not without ruining the future.

Edward released me, and stared at the floor so I took the opportunity to slip from the room and run at full speed down the corridor. I had seen enough, heard enough, chanced enough and was about to find a quiet place to concentrate on the time turner and go back to my own time, but just as I rounded the corner I smacked right into Orion.

I cast the disillusionment charm as quickly as I could so that when he looked up, he saw nothing.

He looked around frantically and then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Edward?" he whispered, continuing to look around him.

"Dammit Edward, take off that infernal cloak," he demanded.

I remained silent and watched as his face contorted into several familiar expressions and I could tell that he was hurting. Nothing prominent said so, but the gentle crease of his forehead and the thinly veiled circles under his eyes told me that he hadn't been sleeping and that he had shed several tears.

"Fine, stay hidden. I suppose I deserve it," he sighed. "I've been an arse, I know. But you knew this would be impossible. You knew I would lose against him."

For some odd reason the gods seemed to smile upon me as they let Orion open up to me here in this room. They let me overhear things that he would have only said to Edward in private.

"I love you, Edward, you know I do, but I can't stand against my own father, not now, not as he's wasting away at St. Mungo's. If his final wish is for me to marry Isabella, I have to do it," he said, as if pleading for Edward to understand him, and if Edward had been there, perhaps he would have.

I however, felt sick. Orion left his Potter, but as a fulfillment of a dying wish to his father. Draco could make no claim, he was merely afraid of his father and Voldemort, terrified of what they would do to Harry and himself if they found out about their relationship, and far to scared to offer up the information as he refused to wed his proposed match.

How could I manage to feel even more confused than I did before now? Orion's intentions were far nobler than mine. Could I follow his path, could I forsake Harry for my father's goodwill? For our continued safety, no matter how fragile it might be?

I gripped the time turner in my hands, needing to know how it all turned out and took myself into the future, but not my future, theirs.

Orion married Isabella, as I knew he would, and unsurprisingly Edward lingered at the back of the crowd during the ceremony, his broken heart worn clearly on his sleeve.

"Edward," Orion said as he approached the man reluctantly. Edward didn't look out of place amongst the haughty Malfoy and Greengrass families, in fact I'm fairly sure at this point the Potter's and the Malfoy's would have been social with another as it was long before the war that divided the families. "What are you doing here?"

The brunette simply held out an envelope, which Orion took and scanned at once, his face falling. "I just came to invite you to my own wedding," Edward told him, apparently trying for smugness, but looking just as pitiful and broken as he had before.

"You're marrying Stephanie Prince?" he asked incredulously. "Do you even know her?"

"You only just met your wife last week," Edward countered.

"Why are you doing this?" Orion asked, clearly hurt by the spiteful gesture, and even I felt a bit sorry for my ancestral counterpart. It was obvious that Edward was only there to hurt him.

"Why not?" Edward mused. "If you can marry for obligation instead of love, why shouldn't I make my own loveless match?"

"That's ridiculous, Edward," Orion sighed. "You know we can't marry, you know we can't be together."

"What I know is that you don't even want to try," Edward rebuked. "You'd rather take the logical road and completely ignore your heart."

"I'm not ignoring my heart," Orion spat, his voice rising with his temper, causing people to look. "Do you think I love you any less right now then I did years ago when we started this affair? Who do you think I wanted to recite those vows to?"

"I know who you _did_ recite them to and that's all that matters," Edward hissed and stormed off, leaving Orion surrounded by questioning family members and looking distraught.

I sighed and clutched the time turner once more, having confirmed all my fears in one fell swoop. Harry and I were not meant to be together, and just as my heritage showed, I was bound to hurt him in the end, so why string it along? It might not be painless, but it could be quick, and I could leave Harry with the notion that I was never the right person for him and he would be able to move on and forget about me, instead of harboring a torch for me that would never die out.

In eight seconds I was back in the washroom where I had left, clearly back in my own time from the way moaning Myrtle was still groaning about some Gilbert Quinn telling her off.

I paced the expansive tiled room, taking deep breaths and slowly expelling them as I worked up the nerve and the words to tell Harry that I couldn't see him again. The worst part would be devising a story that could make him angry enough to forget me.

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"No!" Shannon shouted firmly, her arms crossed resolutely over her chest. "I most certainly will not!"

I sighed and sagged onto my bed, ignoring her angry posture and attempted to look as pitiful and desperate as I felt. "Please Shan," I groaned. "If he thinks that maybe I never really wanted him at all, it will be easier for him to just be angry with me and move on."

"He won't just be angry with you, he will hate you, Draco," she chided.

"I'm willing to accept that," I told her defiantly. Harry's safety and happiness was more important than my own, and if Harry had to hate me in order to get over me, then I would deal with it. "I'd rather him hate me then have to attend my wedding, or me his funeral."

"You're being overdramatic. No one is going to die, and there are other ways to avoid getting married aside from telling your father that you're sleeping with the enemy," she noted coldly. Shannon's entire demeanor changed when I asked her to pretend to date me so I could break up with Harry.

I suppose it was understandable, I was asking a lot, but what are friends for? Clearly not for fake relationships and ending real relationships. Was a being a coward? Maybe, but I was being a coward for Harry's benefit.

"I don't have to tell him, Shan. He'll take it from my mind. If I give him any reason to doubt my intentions, he'll use legilimency on me, or maybe even turn me right over to the Dark Lord," I told her, trying to get her to understand the importance of her help.

"You're going about all this the wrong way. You need to tell Harry what's going on, you need to be honest with him," she warned. "Maybe he can help you."

"The last thing I need is him making some heroic gesture that could get him killed," I replied.

"Surely he wouldn't just run off headlong after the Dark Lord or anything," she muttered with a roll of here eyes, and all I could do was stare incredulously at her.

"I'm sorry, have you even met my boyfriend?" I asked her at last. "Harry Potter, the boy who insinuates himself into every adventure he can muster, the boy who spends all his free time angering evil wizards, slaying basilisks and breaking and entering into Ministry buildings? I should introduce you, you'd like him."

She huffed and sat down on the end of my bed, shaking her head at me in dismay. "Harry's special, Draco. He's one of a kind, and you'll never find someone like him ever again," she began, and raised her wand menacingly when I tried to interrupt. "I'm not going to be your pretend girlfriend to hurt this boy. I won't do it, and no guilt trip or manipulation will change my mind. Just talk to Harry," she said, her voice holding a firm resolve that I had only once heard from one other person, and that was my mother.

I sighed and fell backward on the mattress, letting my head bounce against the warm downy softness as I thought about what she said. It was easy to agree with her because I didn't want to give Harry up, but wasn't that just being selfish? Our being together would cause nothing but harm, but at the same time, didn't we deserve to be happy?

After Shannon left, I was just as conflicted as I had started my day, and all through dinner, as I watched Harry talk playfully with his friends and I rolled Shannon's advice around in my mind, I wondered what the best decision would be.

Even on my journey up to the Room of Requirement I was fighting with myself as to what I should do. Break it off or tell him the truth?

Slowly I opened the magical door, revealing a quiet little sitting room and Harry lounged in front of the fire, his glasses reflecting the bright orange light of the flames. He turned to look at me, his face half in shadow and his scar showing in harsh relief on his forehead when he ran a hand through his messy black hair.

A genuine smile erupted on his face, his perfectly soft lips curled up to show his joy at my arrival. Such a small thing to have merely opened a door; it hardly seemed worthy of such a glowing and beautiful smile.

I took a deep breath, but could not muster a smile to match his, no matter how happy I felt at seeing him as well. With the door shutting soundly behind me, I stepped into the room and could hardly meet his eyes as I said the only words that came to mind.

"Harry, we have to talk."

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Authors Note: So, will he break up with him or tell him the truth?! I hope you all enjoyed the latest installment. Please review for Harry baked pumpkin pie (one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving which is only a few days away!!


	9. Just an Illusion

Authors Note: I'm very very excited about this story (and this chapter in particular) and many many thanks go out to my lover-ly and brilliant beta Shannon (She has left you all and additional note at the bottom!)

Chapter 9 Just an Illusion

Harry's eyes lost their mirth all at once when the words 'we have to talk' escaped my lips.

"Why does that sound so sinister?" he asked, his voice bordered on playful but I could tell he was worried.

"This is important," I warned. "And I've spent all day trying to figure out how to tell you."

Harry's eyes shone with understanding, as if something finally dawned on him. "That's why you've been ducking out on me? Is it Voldemort?"

I winced at the name I couldn't help it. Harry might know the fiend intimately enough to feel comfortable with calling him that, but I heard plenty of rumors about his first rise to power and refused to utter the name. "No," I replied immediately, not wanting to give him the wrong impression. It would have been nice to pin it all on the Dark Lord, but it was mostly my own cowardice that got me into this mess.

Harry sighed, visibly relieved and beckoned me over to the sofa. "Then it can't be too bad. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it," he replied confidently. His surety of words made my knees weak and my mouth dry; I wanted nothing more that to avoid disappointing him.

"We have to break up," I blurted, apparently channeling Harry, and watched his face fall again.

A slew of emotions from hurt to anger to fear all passed through those brilliant green eyes and I braced myself for the onslaught of yelling, or crying or whatever else Harry had in his arsenal to throw at me.

What he actually did was the least expected response I could have imagined.

"Fine," he muttered and got up, looking as if he was walking toward me, but instead passed me and went for the door .

"Fine?" I shouted. "Fine? That's all you have to say? You don't even want to know why? You're just content to walk away and leave this all behind?"

I know my sudden lack of logical reasoning was inappropriate and unfounded, but I couldn't seem to help myself. If our relationship was so important to Harry, then why wasn't he putting up some form of protest? I spent days agonizing over this moment and all I get is 'fine'?

"If it's what you want, who am I to argue? I have no intentions of trying to worm my way into a relationship with someone who doesn't love me," Harry pointed out, more rationally than I had expected.

"But I do love you, I just told you that last night!" I shouted.

"And now you're telling me you want to break up," Harry added. "So which is it?"

"Why can't it be both?" I asked, unsure of what I even wanted to say anymore. Of course I loved him, but sometimes love just wasn't enough to keep you alive.

"Because it can't," Harry replied, beginning to look like he was leaning more toward angry than neutral, which was fine with me as long as I got something. "So which is it?"

I sighed and closed the distance between us. "I love you," I whispered and grabbed his hand.

Harry smiled at me then and it was just as it was when I had walked in, all warm and kissable. It was in that moment that I realized he had been manipulating me and my world spun slightly out of control. "You knew I wouldn't just let you walk out that way?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.

"I had to see what was real," he said with a shrug. "If you didn't really care about me you would have let me walk, but if you did, you would have stopped me. I was just hoping that you stopped me," he explained and pulled my dumbfounded form over to the sofa.

"I can't believe I got tricked by a Gryffindor," I muttered.

Harry laughed and kissed me lightly. "After all these years one would think you'd be used to it by now," he teased.

I gave him my best withering scowl but Harry seemed unfazed.

"So what was all that breaking up nonsense all about?" Harry asked, curling against me.

"I got the letter," I told him, pulling it from my robe pocket and handing it over to ease the confused look on his face.

"Oh," he muttered after scanning the brief note in my father's elegant handwriting. "You're right. We have to break up."

"What?" I asked, staring at him incredulously.

"You knew this was coming, you said so weeks ago. You can't tell him no, and I won't be your mistress… er… you know what I mean," Harry grumbled as he got up and began pacing in front of the fire.

The flames licked upward as if spurned by his frustration and perhaps they were, but I could only gape at him. "I don't believe this!" I shouted. "You just said it was one or the other. You just said that we would deal with whatever it is!"

"I don't know how to deal with this, Draco!" he shouted frantically. "I know your father, I know what he'll do to you if you refuse him, and I know what Voldemort will do to you if you give him even the slightest reason."

I felt the blood run ice cold in my veins as Harry confirmed my worst fears. "But we have time," I protested weakly. "The wedding isn't until summer. We might think of something before then. You might kill the Dark Lord by then!"

Harry shook his head and collapsed onto the sofa next to me, staring deep into my eyes. "You would prefer I get more attached to you than I already am and then have it all yanked away?"

"No!" I shouted, tears beginning to burn the corners of my eyes. "Dammit Harry, I love you!" I sobbed and pulled him into an awkward messy kiss, one that I really hoped wasn't our last because I didn't want that to be the kiss he remembered forever.

Harry's body shook with his own tears and they mingled with mine on our robes until he pushed me flat to the coushions and straddled my waist. "You're right. We'll figure something out," he promised and leaned down to kiss me again.

His lips were terribly urgent, as if his body was saying goodbye even though his words were not. He felt as if he were trying to memorize me, trying to burn every fiber of my being into his mind so he could keep it forever. Maybe he knew just as well as I did that there would be no keeping me.

My father would win. Voldemort would win. They always did.

But then Harry had been the only wizard to best them both, so maybe there was more of a possibility than I thought.

Hot kisses trailed down my chest before I even noticed Harry had opened my shirt. I felt like we should be talking more about what we were going to do, but Harry's kips were insistent and I didn't think I would have been able to deter him if I had wanted to, and I didn't really want to.

I closed my eyes and drank in the sensations of him, his searing hot tongue against my chest, sharp teeth biting into my nipples and roaming hands grabbing my hips and arse. When I felt the tickle of his hair on my cheek I looked up to see him hovering over me, his green eyes glowing amber from the light of the fire.

"I want to make love to you," he whispered, and I swallowed thickly in response. I knew it would come to that eventually, the next step in our physical relationship had been looming over both our heads for days now and it secretly terrified me just as much as it turned me on.

I loved Harry, I loved the idea of him inside me and I wanted to give him whatever he wanted, but I had no idea what to expect. It wasn't like a hand job, or a blowjob where I could work the mechanics out easily enough by experience or logic.

"I've never," I began to whisper, but he silenced me with a finger to my lips.

"I haven't either," he interrupted.

"But I thought," I stammered, not wanting to recall our first argument where I found out Harry was not as pure at I had imagined him to be.

"I've done other things, but never that," Harry replied in a faintly embarrassed whisper.

"Why not?" I asked, both genuinely curious as to how Harry's mind worked and not wanting to know any details about his sexual history all at once.

"I was waiting for the right person… I think I was waiting for you," he replied with a soft smile.

I sighed and smiled up into his shining face. "That better not be a line," I teased and he stuck his tongue out at me playfully.

His face grew serious then and I wondered what was going on in that pretty head of his. "If you're not ready, I understand," he offered, and I knew from the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth. He wouldn't fault me for a second if I turned him down.

"I could very well be rubbish," I warned, smiling sheepishly.

"So could I," Harry replied.

I rolled my eyes and swatted him lightly. "You're Harry Potter, you're good at everything."

Harry sighed and fell to the coushions beside me. "I wish that were true," he whispered. "Then I could just kill Voldemort, tell your father to sod off and keep you all to myself forever."

"So then why don't you," I bargained, liking the sound of Harry's fantasy future.

"Because I'm not the big hero everyone thinks I am," he groaned. "I'm just lucky."

I felt a fierceness flow through me unlike anything I had ever experienced before. "You _are_ a hero," I growled. "You've saved this school and all of the wizarding world countless times over the years. Not everything can be attributed to luck."

Harry's eyes went wide and he waved a hand defensively in front of my face. "Wow, sorry. I didn't know it was such a touchy subject."

I hadn't either. "I just don't like to hear you disparage the talents of the man I love," I replied, now realizing that I felt the need to stick up for Harry, even to him.

Harry groaned and pulled me to him, ripping at my trousers and kissed me with a heat that I had never quite felt from him before. I felt his need well to the surface like a tangible thing and I wanted to run my tongue across it. "If you're not ready, then take me," he breathed, his voice a hot whisper across my skin. "I need you, Draco. I need you now."

A movement shimmered beside us and I looked up to see a large bed taking shape in the corner. The room, as always, knew what we required and I lifted Harry from the sofa and carried him over to it, gently lowering him to the mattress so that his legs dangled over the edge.

With quick and practiced movements I divested him of his clothing so that we were both nude, and then fell to my knees in front of him so that I could look down the line of his body as I took him into my mouth.

He cried out for me, and I imagined it was all for me simply because he knew that I liked it when he was vocal. Harry's moans and sharp intakes of breaths echoed in my ears as I ran his tongue up and down the length of Harry's cock. I felt Harry's fingers press into my skull and pull lightly on his hair as his body started to tighten and I prepared for Harry's release just in time for the warm liquid to coat my tongue and throat.

Harry was breathing heavily as he looked up at me, his green eyes still glazed over with lust. "Are you sure?" I asked him, my whole body was shaking from fear and anticipation.

"Please," he moaned. "Please make love to me, Draco."

I bit roughly into his thigh before I shifted above him and pressed lightly against his entrance. "Er…" I began, confused as to what I should do, and Harry grinned. With a flick of his wand I felt a warm slick liquid cover my erection.

I ran my fingers through it and dipped one slowly into his arse, watching his body writhe and his eyelids flutter. He seemed to be enjoying it quite a fair bit, so I added a second finger and his eyes took on a slightly squinted expression, but when he urged me forward with his hips I added a third finger.

When he stopped feeling so insanely tight I might break him, I withdrew my fingers altogether, smirking at Harry's whimpering protests and slowly replaced them with my throbbing cock. I was only a few inches in when his whimpers of pleasure turned into something pained.

"I'm hurting you!" I exclaimed and tried to pull out, but was kept inside of him by the firm lock that Harry's legs had around my waist.

"It's fine. It's fine," he hissed, and clearly it wasn't fine.

"What does it feel like?" I asked, knowing I could barely keep myself from thrusting through him he felt so good, but I doubted it was the same on his end.

"It feels like you," he replied with a cheeky grin and at my perplexed face he continued. "Impossibly hard to take at first, but eventually it grows on you."

I scowled down into his smirking face and drove myself further inside of him, relishing in the way his eyes rolled back into his head and his back arched as he tried to impale himself even deeper.

I let him ride me, not wanting to hurt him by being to rough, and not wanting to withhold what he wanted, so I just let him take it, realizing at once that whatever Harry ever wanted from me he could have. I would stand and defy both my father and the Dark Lord at once if he asked it of me.

Maybe that was just the sex talking, but I didn't think so.

I was a changed man. Changed by Harry and irrevocably his forever.

His body began to tighten around me and it was so startlingly pleasurable that I screamed out, I called his name as my orgasm took me and filled him with my seed.

With a shuddering sigh I collapsed on top of him, letting myself remain locked in his embrace as long as he offered it. "I love you," he whispered in my ear and I kissed him, long and hot and rough.

"I love you, too," I replied when we broke apart.

Harry pulled me down into the bed and we fell asleep almost instantly, silently deciding to stay the night together in the Room of Requirement instead of going back to our separate dorms.

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When I woke up, the bed beside me was cold. Harry must have left and been gone for a while. I scanned the room quickly and saw nothing but an empty sofa and a fireplace filled with dying embers.

A million questions ran through my mind. What happened? Was it something I did? Could he have been summoned away somehow? Was he regretting what we did? I couldn't think of anything to have made him just leave without at least waking me to say goodbye.

Unless leaving_ was_ his goodbye…

I reluctantly removed myself from the warmth of the bed and trudged to the sofa where we had left our clothes. As I suspected, Harry's were missing. I dressed quickly; unsure of what time it was and stuffed my father's letter back into my pocket before making a hasty retreat.

Lucky for me it was still early so almost everyone was sleeping. The ones who were awake paid little attention to a seventh year Slytherin walking into their own common room. I got no more than twenty steps into the room when a firm hand started guiding me to my dorm and I looked over to see Shannon's expectant gaze.

As soon as the door shut behind us she lit into me. "So is it a good sign or a bad sign that you didn't come back last night?"

I sighed and flopped onto my bed. "If you had asked last night I would have said a good thing, but now I don't know," I told her honestly.

"How could you not know? Did you break up with him or not?" she asked, her hands placed firmly on her hips.

"I did, but then he made me take it back and then I showed him father's letter and he broke up with me and I made _him_ take it back and then we had sex and we slept together in the room," I offered her as the edited version of our evening.

She squealed, a high-pitched noise I had only heard at a _Weird Sisters_ concert and she began shaking my shoulders. "Draco, that's great news! How could that be bad?"

"He was gone when I woke up," I muttered. "Had been for a while judging from the temperature of the bed."

"Oh," she sighed, sinking to the bed beside me like someone had let all the air out of her balloon. "Maybe there was a good reason?" she offered weakly and I nodded.

"Maybe."

It seemed to matter fairly little what his reasoning was though, and clearly Shannon agree. You just don't bail on someone after having sex for the first time.

It wasn't until I reached in my pocket to reread the letter from my father- something I did on a fairly regular basis these days – that I found out why Harry had left me that morning.

He wasn't called away on some higher wartime duty, or wanting to make sure Hermione and Ron wouldn't see him sneaking back into the Gryffindor common room, or even because I snored -thought I don't-, no he was leaving the room because he was leaving _me_.

I read his note over and over, maybe a dozen times or more before I handed it silently over to Shannon, who sobbed after just the first line and proceeded to try and comfort me with a hug. I let her hug me, but I felt nothing really.

My entire body was numb from the shock of losing Harry. "Read it out loud," I whispered and she shook her head against my chest. "Read it out loud," I repeated, a little angrier than before. "It will help make it real."

She sniffed and rubbed at her nose before holding the paper up and pushing her glasses back into place. "My dearest Draco," she began, and her sniffling increased. "I love you more than words on paper could ever get right. You mean more to me than my own beating heart, and that's why I have to leave you. We might have been all wrong from the start, but that matters little after we've shared so much," she read aloud through stifled sobs.

"Keep reading," I prodded.

"Every night I dream of you, and what was once carefree fantasies has morphed into prophecies of your death. I've never put much stock in divination, but it cannot be denied that I have a price on my head and that there are people, people close to you, that will do anything to collect it. Every minute you stay with me puts you in more danger. Everyone I love could die just because I love them, and I will never place that fate upon your head," she continued and let the note fall from her hands.

"That wasn't the end. Finish it," I pleaded, my own tears making it impossible to see.

She sighed and picked the note back up. "I refuse to be the one that gets you hurt or killed and I can't be the one to tear you away from your family. I know what it's like to have no parents to call my own, and I wouldn't wish that fate on you either. So marry the girl. The marriage will keep you safe, and who knows, she might even make you happy. Close your mind off to Voldemort until I kill him, and I promise I will do that final thing for you even if he takes me down with him. As for me, don't worry. I'm joining the Order fulltime and leaving school, so you won't have to see me again. Hermione and Ron still know nothing, so they should continue to leave you alone. You will always have my heart, Draco. Always. Love, H.J.P.," she finished and fell on me once more.

"He's gone," I whispered, still finding it impossible to believe and nearly choked on the words. After all the time I spent thinking it was best to break up, he had changed my mind with a look and a word. Now here he was, breaking things off, and _leaving _no less. At least when I was going to break up with him I was planning to stay near, so that we could get back together if we deemed it right. He took my idea and went too far with it, after convincing me that the idea was wrong at the start.

Now here he was, off to fight the battles that happened to our families outside of this sheltered school, and to fight Voldemort, maybe even die by Voldemort's hand and he couldn't even look me in the eye and say goodbye!

Coward. Liar. Thief.

I ripped the pillow I hadn't even known I was clutching in half and threw it down, before taking one hand and swiping it along the surface of my nightstand, causing a number of glittering objects to shatter and crash to the ground startling Shannon. One of the objects was the time turner. I stared at it for a long moment and thought of using it to go back to make Harry stay, but I couldn't. If he wanted to leave me, I couldn't make him stay. If he was able to look at me, sleeping peacefully in his arms, and want to give me up, than he was never really mine to start with.

That, and the time turner looked broken.

I took a deep breath and stood up, startling Shannon once again and she tried to take my hand, but I shook her off. It was time to be Draco Malfoy, pureblood wizard and heir to the Malfoy name and fortune again, not some sadistic hero's plaything.

A glance in the mirror showed the old Draco, worn and beaten, and I couldn't have that. With a quick and graceful movement I smoothed out my collar and ran nimble fingers through my hair before leaving my room without a word and headed for the Great Hall for breakfast.

I was famished.

**Beta's Notes:** Hey, guys, this is Shannon (the real one). I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who said such nice things about my character, whom Dig gave my name and characteristics to. When I requested History Repeats Itself I thought being a character would be fun, yet I had no idea that I would be part of the main plot, and that made me incredibly nervous, so thank you soooo much for alleviating my fears! :D I love you all!

**Authors Note:** Yes, yes. I know it's sad, but I like sad. It was still good right? lol. Broken time turners and sweet Dear John letters to all who review.


	10. A Curse on Both Your Houses

Authors Note: I know I've been MIA as of late, but I assure you that I'm back on track now and not only will I start updating current stories, but I've actually started 2 new stories that I will begin posting shortly.

Many thanks to my beta Shannon!!

Chapter 10 A Curse on Both Your Houses

Nearly a month had passed since Potter's Dear John letter and I had never felt better.

Potter leaving had been the best thing to happen to me. It took every ounce of confusion he had created in my life and replaced it with the calm that came from knowing what destiny had in store for me. All I had to do was go back to my father's plan for my future and I had no more headaches, no more heartache and no more stress.

The first thing I did was write my father back so that I could tell him how thrilled I was that he had found a proper match and that I couldn't wait to meet her. Mother replied and sent me a picture of my future bride and she wasn't even terrible looking.

After that I had to reestablish my place as head of the Slytherin house because I had been letting my authority slip. My dalliances with Potter had been too big a distraction and I couldn't afford to let someone else steal my place at the head of the line.

With a few well-placed jabs and pranks on the younger students and a couple stories boasting my upcoming nuptials and the fact that Voldemort himself would probably be attending, I was back in. I knew it was returned to normal because Blaise and Pansy wouldn't give me a minute to myself while Crabbe and Goyle began asking me for class assignment advice again.

Unfortunately there was also the matter of Shannon to deal with. I still wanted to be friends with her, but every time I looked at her I was reminded of Potter. Our friendship went hand in hand with my secret relationship with the Gryffindor liar and it was just too painful.

She tended to keep her distance anyway.

After the morning I got Potter's letter I ignored her. I ignored everyone really, but especially her. I couldn't help but hear my ex's parting words from her mouth and it made me physically ill, so I avoided her whenever I could. I was fully aware that it made me an arse, particularly since I _made_ her read it to me to begin with, but I couldn't help the way I felt. As irrational as it was I hated her just as much as I hated Potter. Clearly she sensed that after awhile and she started avoiding me in return.

My rift with Shannon had forced me to ask Pansy to the dance, which I regretted immediately as she declared herself my girlfriend until I could persuade her that I was engaged to be married to someone else as soon as I graduated. Technically it didn't really matter who I took though, because when the dance was announced the only person I had wanted to spend the night with was Potter, and clearly that wouldn't have happened whether he had left me or not.

It was nearly a week before I could stop thinking of him as Harry and go back to referring to him as 'Potter' in my typical seething manner. First names were for idiot saps who fawned over pretty boys with pretty words and that was _not_ Draco Malfoy - at least not anymore.

There was no more Harry and Draco, or Drarry as Shannon had been fond of calling us. It was Malfoy and Potter again, rivals, hated enemies and sometimes I thought that I should have given him over to Voldemort when I had the chance.

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The final night of that long and turbulent month without Potter found me lounging in an armchair in the Slytherin common room. Pansy was sitting on the floor at my feet as she leaned her weight against my legs and drew invisible circles on my leg. Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle were all gathered around a game of exploding snap and Shannon was on our sofa, curled up by herself with a book.

"So, Drake," Pansy began out of nowhere and I cringed at the nickname. I was forced to wonder if anyone in the history of the Malfoy line ever shortened his or her name? I doubt anyone had the audacity to call my father 'Luci'. But I knew Pansy wasn't being malicious with it, she was just stupid, so I let it slide.

"Yes," I muttered distractedly.

"Rumor has it you were secretly fucking Harry Potter," she blurted and all eyes suddenly turned toward me.

It was clear that they had all been waiting for Pansy to ask that particular question and I was curious as to how long the rumor had been flying through the halls without my knowledge. Their faces were riddled with hunger for my answer, all except Shannon, who only peeked at me worriedly over her book.

I knew in that moment that I had to act quickly and perfectly or else they would have my head on a platter. I nearly thanked Potter out loud for leaving me so coldly, because had we still be together, I would have surely been caught by my housemates. As it was the shock of the question alone nearly gave me away.

"Maybe you should stop spreading lies and find other uses for that big mouth of yours, Parkinson," I offered suggestively.

Apparently it was the right response because Crabbe shoved Blaise with a 'told you so' and everyone went back to what they had been doing. Everyone except for Pansy, that is.

Instead she smiled demurely, which was my first warning sign, and sidled up into my lap. "I only ask because you certainly haven't been fucking me," she purred.

I raised an eyebrow and tried not to shift uncomfortably under her weight. It wasn't lost on me that Shannon was watching my every move with a slightly smug grin. Clearly it amused her to watch me squirm after I had been such an arse to her. "When have I ever, Parkinson? You know I'm engaged."

"So," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "That doesn't mean you can't have some fun on the side."

Before I had the chance to reply, Shannon was pulling Pansy from my lap. "If Draco's going to be with anyone other than his true love that person is certainly not you," Shannon growled and shoved Pansy away from the both of us.

Not that I wasn't grateful for her interference, but I did notice that she wasn't talking about my bride-to-be. I was fairly certain that when she said 'true love' she meant 'Harry' and I wasn't sure how I felt about that. At the moment I wasn't prepared to argue semantics though.

"Oh, and would that person be you?" Pansy shouted at Shannon with a vicious laugh. The girls had never gotten along. Shannon saw Pansy for what she was, a vacant predator and Pansy always saw Shannon as a threat to her standing as the Queen of Slytherin.

A flicker of shock crossed Shannon's face before she bowed up and nodded. "Maybe it _is_ me," she replied haughtily and in that moment I couldn't have been sorrier that I had ignored her.

"Oh, right. What was I thinking, of _course_ it is," Pansy huffed sarcastically. "Do you really expect us to believe that he's been with you?"

What happened then surprised me as much as everyone else. Shannon whirled around, shot me a brief but apologetic look and kissed me. After a quick recovery from the shock I tried to return the kiss, or at least as best as I could since it felt like she was practically my sister.

Pansy stormed off and once again everyone went back to his or her own activities and I was left slightly befuddled. Before I could say anything though, Shannon leaned in and whispered a cold 'you're welcome' in my ear before disappearing into her own dorm.

The next morning she was avoiding me again. It took me hours to try and corner her and it wasn't until right after dinner before I finally did. She was on her way to the common room when I pulled her into the same unused classroom that Potter and I had used the first time we kissed. It seemed appropriate somehow to apologize in the place where it all began.

"I'm sorry," I blurted, not waiting for her to protest at being there with me.

She shook her head, pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest, looking very much like an angry mother. "Not good enough."

I sighed and tried to grab her hand but she yanked it out of my reach. "I know I was a prat, but it's been hard," I admitted.

"You think I don't understand that?" she rebuked. "You're acting like a completely different person now."

"The guy you were friends with doesn't exist. He shouldn't have to begin with. When we met part of me already belonged to Potter. Gentle Draco's gone now, but you and I can still be friends. You just have to get to know _Malfoy _instead of the Draco you knew before," I offered.

She rolled her eyes. "You are ridiculous. First of all, his name is Harry, not 'Potter'. Second, _you're_ still the same person no matter what you say, you're just angry so you're being a git to everyone."

"Of course I'm angry! I have every right to be! He slept with me and then he bailed. He broke my fucking heart!" I wailed and nearly collapsed to my knees. I would have if Shannon hadn't held me up.

"I know he did, and I'm so sorry, Draco, but you can't make everyone else pay for Harry's mistakes. He was an ignorant prat for what he did to you but two wrongs don't make a right. So you turning into a huge prat as well isn't going to make anything easier," she chided.

"It _is_ easier though. I'm back on track now. I don't have to worry about someone catching me and Potter together anymore – because we're not together, I don't have to worry about how to tell my father that I can't marry the girl he picked because I'm in love with someone else – because I'm not in love with anyone else, and I don't have to worry about what the rest of my life will contain because it's already planned out for me. I'll graduate, get married, produce and heir and I'll get the Dark Mark and become a Death Eater for Voldemort, just like father," I told her firmly.

"You can't be serious?" she demanded, her eyes wide and unbelieving.

"Dead," I replied.

"That's exactly what you'll be if that's your plan!" she shouted. "Harry left you to protect you, and you're going to throw away his sacrifice by falling at the Dark Lord's feet?"

"To protect me? Whose side are you on here? _He_ sacked _me_, not the other way around. I owe him nothing. He made his choice and now I've made mine," I snarled.

"Fine. You're a big boy, Draco, you can do what you want, but don't expect me to sit around and watch you ruin your life. You need to wake up and see that your father and the Dark Lord and all those Slytherin's in the common room don't know you like I do. I know what you really want and that is certainly not to marry some pureblooded bint and become a Death Eater. You want Harry," she countered smugly.

"I _did_ want Harry, but clearly he didn't want me. I would have done anything for him and he left me," I replied, close to sobbing. I hadn't let myself feel the loss until then, not really. I knew he was gone, but I had refused to think about what that really meant.

With Harry my life had suddenly developed choices. There was no plan carved into stone with my name at the top of it anymore and I was free to do what made me happy. But then, what made me happy left and I was back to square one and no choices.

But maybe I did still have a choice even though Harry was gone.

"He's going to come back, and when he does, he'll be really cross with you if you're wearing the Dark Mark," she told me in a slightly teasing tone, but I could tell she believed it. I could tell she really thought that Harry would come back and we would just pick up where we left off.

I only wished it could be that easy.

I didn't know what to say though, because I didn't think he was coming back. He said he was going to kill Voldemort, and if he did that, then there was no reason we couldn't be together, but he also told me to get married, which to me painted a clear picture that he was moving on.

Maybe he fell for someone else. Maybe there was a member of the order that he fancied and finally decided he preferred that person to me. A jealous fire burned within me at the very idea of it and I knew for a fact I was nowhere near over him. I sighed and buried my face in my hands.

"What am I going to do?" I pleaded to no one in particular, but Shannon was at my side, rubbing calming circles into my back.

"You just take it one day at a time," she advised soothingly. "It'll get better."

I didn't really believe her but I nodded and tried to force a smile. It was fairly obvious that she knew it was phony, but when we made our way back to the common room we did so together, which made me feel more adjusted than I had all month.

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I had a dream that night that felt like much more than just a dream. I thought at first that it was Harry and I in a bedroom that I didn't recognize, but I quickly realized that it was actually Edward and Orion, though they looked older than they had in my last Time Turner trip. Not by much, but certainly a few years had gone by since Orion's wedding.

The dream was fuzzy at first, like a thick fog had settled over my vision, but as it dissipated I realized they were both nude and writhing on the bed that centered the room. I turned away from their private moment, trying not to think about the single time that Harry and I made love and failing miserably.

It was then that I noticed the two women staring at me from the doorway. One was tall and extremely thin, almost too thin. She had blonde hair that was pulled into a very fancy knot and she wore a sheer green dressing gown over a long black slip dress. The other woman was a bit fuller and had a pretty blush to her cheeks; her hair was dark- nearly black- and was loose around her face while hiding most of her red satin gown from the waist up.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, but they didn't answer. Suddenly I realized that they weren't staring at me at all, their eyes were for the couple on the bed. Only then did I see that their faces were pinched in abject horror and betrayal and I instantly knew who they were.

Somehow I had managed to conjure images of Isabella Greengrass and Stephanie Prince, Harry's and my great to theN-th degree grandmother's and the wives of the men in bed together.

"How long," Isabella whispered from the door. It wasn't very loud but it was enough for Edward and Orion to stop and look at the door with mortified expressions.

They flung away from each other like fire had burst between them, but it was too late and they knew it. Edward looked to Orion and nodded solemnly; apparently giving him the permission to tell his wife whatever story he wanted.

With a heavy sigh, Orion moved closer to Edward and took his hand. "Twelve years," he said at last and a gasp of shock emanated from both gaping women.

"You were together _before _we got married?" Stephanie demanded angrily.

"Yes," Edward admitted. "We've been together since fourth year, but it ended before the wedding," he assured her.

"But began again shortly after," Orion corrected.

Edward's eyes were locked on his lover's, barely paying attention that his own wife was in the room as well. "We love each other, and we couldn't stay away."

"So you cheated?" Isabella growled.

"We stood by you, we cared for you, we gave you children and you repay us with lies?" Stephanie shouted.

"What were we supposed to do? It's not as if any of us married for love. We were all put here by our parents. Edward and I just chose not to cut our hearts out of our chests when we slipped that wedding band on our finger," Orion protested.

"Stephanie, you were in love with that boy from Durmstrang when we were paired by our fathers. Surely if you had the chance to be with him now you would," Edward reasoned.

"I could have been with him if we had broken our engagement!" she yelled. "Now he has a wife and children and my chance is gone. You never spoke of someone else, you never told me that you were in love with a Malfoy."

Orion shook his head. "It wouldn't have mattered. An heir is far more important than love. You both know that."

"So that justifies it?" Isabella demanded.

"No, it's just-" Orion began but Stephanie cut him off with a wave of her wand and narrow menacing eyes.

"A curse!" she shouted and then her voice became trance like as she clung to Isabella's hand. "A curse on both your bloodlines."

Orion and Edward looked at each other nervously but I stood in rapt attention, unable to take my eyes off of the chanting women.

"Every generation in the lines of Potter and Malfoy will produce a single male heir and one alone," Stephanie announced, her voice reverberating around the room as if it were an empty cavern.

"These heirs will have a cursed existence, bringing unneeded strife and even early death into their midst unless they follow their heart instead of the heritage and family laws pressed upon them. The Malfoy and Potter sons will only find peace with each other, and only then will their lives make sense and become fulfilled. Only then will the curse be broken," she rasped and then fell to her knees, held aloft only by her blonde companion in betrayal.

I strained my eyes, trying to take in the reactions of my ancestors and also trying to keep the dream from fading around the edges but it was no use. The scene was escaping my vision and before long I was back in my own bed, dripping with sweat and my heart was racing.

For some reason I couldn't shake the idea that it was true and not a dream at all. The curse didn't make much sense to me at first, but as I stayed awake staring at my bed hangings, unable to fall back asleep, I thought about it and pieces fell into place for me. I knew very little about the Potter lineage, but I knew Harry's father was an only son and clearly he died young. Was it possible that at some point he and my father were attracted to one another?

I shook the thought away, choosing not to dwell on it and hoping against hope that the age difference between them had kept them apart enough not to ever act on any affection if it had been there at all.

My family had always had only one male heir for as long as I can remember, and I heard my father refer to it as a curse on more than one occasion but I always simply assumed that he was referring to the curse of diminishing Pureblood families.

Was that why he bid me to seek Potter out my first year? Did he know what would happen if we actually spent any time together? Did he want me to break the curse or was I just blowing everything out of proportion and pulling wishes out of thin air?

Maybe there wasn't even a curse and it was all just a silly dream, but why would I have imagined _that_ of all things? Was it just my subconscious mind seeking out any way, no matter how ludicrous, where I could wind up with Harry and be happy or was there more to it than that?

I had to find out.

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As soon as the first light of dawn crested the horizon I spared no time in pulling Shannon from the warmth of her bed and into the cool dewy air of the courtyard. I ignored her grumbling and sat her down on the nearest stone bench, unconcerned with the idea of being overheard because there was no one up at that hour.

"I need to go back in time. Do you know anyone with a Time Turner?" I asked excitedly.

"I heard a rumor that Hermione Granger has one," Shannon offered. "But why-"

"Nah," I interrupted. "I already stole hers. Anybody else?"

"If you already stole Hermione's what do you need with a second one?" she asked, looking thoroughly perplexed and maybe even slightly annoyed. "And why do you-"

"I broke it the day that Harry broke up with me," I told her.

"You broke a Time Turner? Draco there are only like a dozen of those in existence!" she shouted.

"Well, now there are only eleven. Do you know where any of _those_ are?" I pressed again.

"Obviously not," Shannon scoffed. "But why do you need to go back in time in the first place?" she finally had the chance to ask because I had taken a breath.

"I had a dream about my past, well, my ancestors actually, and I need to know if it's true," I reasoned.

"What? Of course it's not. It was only a dream," she replied with a laugh.

"Maybe, maybe not," I huffed.

She looked as though she was humoring me when she patted my arm, but couldn't contain the snicker that escaped her lips. At my withering glare she got a better hold of herself –barely- and nodded as if to indicate that she was done laughing and that it wouldn't happen again. "Okay, if you're set on this theory, then I might have an answer for you."

She was silent after that and I couldn't seem to get it across to her how important it was she told me what she knew. "Well!" I demanded after another moment.

After rolling her eyes delicately she finally continued. "I was snooping around in the restricted section of the Beaxbatons library earlier in the year and I stumbled upon an interesting book on illegal potions. It was fascinating really, the recipes for everything from pox powders to imploding serums was in it," she mused reverently as if flipping through the pages in her mind's eye.

"Why would that be helpful?" I asked, starting to get slightly annoyed.

"If you would let me finish you might know already," she griped.

"If you would finish _faster_ I might know already," I countered.

"It's helpful to you because I remember the instructions for how to make a Time Travel potion," she told me in a huff.

"Shannon, that's brilliant!" I exclaimed and hugged her tightly.

"Now wait a minute," she interrupted, pushing me back far enough that she could look into my eyes. "That potion is _very _dangerous. It's only your consciousness that does the traveling, not your body, so if you can't find your way back to your body, you could be stuck in limbo forever," she warned, a look on her face that was all seriousness and held none of the playful mirth I was used to seeing.

"How would I get back?" I asked, slightly worried.

She merely shrugged. "I don't know. It's different for everyone. All I know is that you have to get back before the potion in your body wears off," she replied.

"And how long will I have?" I asked, still concerned, but also still determined.

With narrowed eyes, as if she could tell I had already made my decision she held up two fingers. "Two hours."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before nodding once. "I can do what I need to do in two hours. Let's start it. How do we begin? What ingredients do we need? How long will it take?" I asked, frantic to get my answers.

"Whoa," she said, placing a finger over my mouth. "First, you have to tell me why you're risking this," she demanded. "I'm not helping you unless you tell me."

It wasn't the threat that made me spill, it was the look of concern in her eyes, which surrounded by the rich landscape of Hogwarts had taken on the shade of green that reminded me of Harry's.

So I told her everything. I started at the beginning with my theft of Granger's Time Turner, and my first foray into the past and ended with the dream I had about the curse. Everything just flowed out of me like a faucet left on high.

When I was finished she just sat there and stared at me for several long minutes and then before I knew it, she was rattling off ingredients and transfiguring parchment out of nearby leaves. After an hour, I had a list of what I needed and precise directions on how to make it and together Shannon and I set off for Snape's storage closet.

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Authors Note: So I couldn't resist a bit of Shakespearian quoting there, even if I did alter it a bit in the story I kept it in the chapter title. Time Travel potions for everyone


	11. Falling Into Place

Authors Note: So I totally frakked up and posted the chapters out of order, so those of you who saw my update first thing got two chapters! lol. Thanks to my beta Shannon for her brilliant work!!

Chapter 11 Falling Into Place

It would take two weeks to make the potion that would send me back in time and I could hardly wait to get started. The potion itself was fairly easy to brew. It was a straightforward method of adding ingredients, stirring and then waiting, nothing fancy had to happen like waiting for a full moon or the third Tuesday in a month beginning in 'J'.

The tricky part was going to be getting the needed ingredients.

There were ten items needed to complete the process, and I knew Snape had some of the more common ones like the bloodroot, cedar, wormwood, larch, mistletoe and mandrake roots in the classroom cupboard.

It was easy enough for us to sneak in and take what we needed without any major problems and we stored it under my bed while we devised a plan to get the rest.

Eyebright, butterfly weed, vervain and lotus flowers however would only be kept in Snape's personal cabinet, which was much riskier to access and take from. He would notice at once if even a petal or leaf were missing from his private store.

Two days passed before we were able to work up the nerve to even attempt breaking into Snape's quarters. It seemed luck was apparently on our side as our beloved Potions Master was called away on some private business away from the castle, giving us ample time to disable his locking charms and get in.

"If one of us gets caught the other needs to bolt, no questions asked, alright?" Shannon whispered once we were inside Snape's bedchamber.

"What? I'm not going to leave you here all alone," I replied with a withering look.

"And what makes you think that I'll be the one getting caught?" she asked haughtily.

"That's not what I said," I replied with a roll of my eyes.

"You implied it," she countered. "And anyway, if I get caught I'll talk my way out of it and vice versa, but if we both get caught it will look _far_ more suspicious."

"You make a good point," I muttered.

"I usually do," she chimed and pulled me further into the room before I could say anything to the contrary.

The room was musty and damp, which didn't really surprise me given the location and the occupant. Clearly Snape spent very little time in his bedchamber and he was probably so used to the foul odor of the potions he made that he couldn't even smell the mildew-like fragrance of his room.

All of the furniture looked old and worn out, as if he was the hundredth generation of professor's to use it, and perhaps he was. His private potions laboratory however, was a stark contrast to his living quarters and as we entered the room through a door that had been left ajar, I marveled at the comfortable magnificence of the room.

Lining every wall of the windowless room were thick mahogany cabinets with black wrought iron handles. In the center were four wide tables in a matching wood with polished red marble counters and multiple cauldrons set up so that several potions could be brewing simultaneously.

Only one potion was bubbling at the moment and its course gray liquid filled the room with an aroma of lavender and lemon.

"I have no idea what that potion could be," I muttered, chastising myself for falling behind in my potions training. It had been so important to me before Harry… but then a lot of things had been important to me before that.

"It's a medicinal potion to cure foul stench jinxes," Shannon noted as she started checking cabinets on her side of the room. "I heard about a second year getting a whole list of them somehow, and no there's an epidemic in the Hufflepuff House."

"How did I not hear about that?" I groaned. Hufflepuff's always got into the most ridiculous messes and it was one of my few gossip indulgences to find out what their latest fiasco was.

"You've been distracted," she replied with a gentle shrug, which was probably her nice way of saying that I had been too busy being an arse to worry about the Hufflepuff's.

I let the subject drop though, no use dwelling on now when we had a task at hand. After a few nasty stinging curses, we managed to break Snape's security charms. It came in handy that he used nearly identical measures to protect his ingredients as he had on my father's cabinets and I've known how to get into those since third year.

Splitting up was by far the quickest method and before long we had the remaining ingredients. We only took what was needed and no more as it would be a miracle if we weren't caught in the first place.

We made our hasty exit from the laboratory with our ingredients in tow, but before we could get out of the Professor's quarters altogether we heard the sound of his main door being unlatched and we both panicked.

I pulled Shannon into the nearest room, which unfortunately happened to be Snape's bedchamber and handed her all the potion ingredients. "Here, take these and cast a disillusionment charm on yourself now," I ordered.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, looking concerned.

"Whatever I need to in order to get out of here in one piece," I replied and shooed her to the other side of the door so that when it opened, she could slip out unnoticed.

"Why don't you come with me?" she hissed, getting quieter as we heard footsteps in the other room.

"He'll need to be distracted enough not to notice an invisible body slipping out of his quarters," I reasoned.

She sighed and did as I said, although she appeared grudging to do so. Only a moment later the door burst open and Snape came striding in, a look of clear surprise on his face at my presence in his bedroom.

"Mr. Malfoy?" he asked. "What in Merlin's name are you doing here?"

"I wanted to speak with you, sir," I offered and stepped back further into the room in hopes that Snape would follow and give Shannon enough room to escape. It worked, and with two long strides, Severus was practically right on top of me, angling me toward the bed.

I swallowed thickly and tried to resist his movements, but he was much larger and stronger than me. "Sir," I gulped, "what are you doing?"

"There are only two reasons for a student to break into my private chambers, Mr. Malfoy," he intoned, a predatory look on his sallow face. "And I didn't find you in the laboratory."

"I just needed to talk to you," I repeated. "About my father," I added for good measure and also to remind him whose son he was trying to seduce.

"You're father?" he asked, backing up a step and looking at me speculatively.

"Yes," I replied, trying not to show my relief at no longer being pressed against the Potions Master. "He hasn't written in some time and I wanted to know if you were aware of any… difficulties at the Manor?"

I hoped it sounded like a legitimate question and the entire time he scrutinized me I held my breath. Finally he nodded curtly and backed up another step. "I know of nothing that might affect the immediate health of either Lucius or Narcissa," he replied at last, meaning that they were currently living with Voldemort and nothing is for certain, but last he heard they were as safe as they could be.

It had taken me a few years to learn how to decipher the circles that my family and their friends spoke in, but once I did it came naturally.

I sighed in a relief that was both true and partially manufactured. It wasn't at all why I was really there, but it was always nice to know that my parents were still alive because at any moment that could stop being true.

"Is that really your only motive here today?" he asked me then, taking another step closer. "You needn't be ashamed if it's not."

"I'm not sure what you mean, sir," I replied inching closer to the door.

"Slytherin boys often like to… experiment," Snape mused. "You're of age now after all."

A shiver ran up my spine at his words, and not the kind of shiver I got with Harry, but more of a sticky, clammy shiver that made me feel unclean. "I assure you, Professor, that concern for my father was all that brought me to you."

"As you wish," he replied looking a fair bit disappointed. "Of you change your mind, my bedchamber is always open to you, Draco."

"Noted," I replied, trying not to gag and with a bow I left the room as quickly as I could while maintaining my dignity.

"Professor Snape is a pervert," I exclaimed as soon as I made it safely into the corridor.

"What happened?" Shannon asked, dispelling the disillusionment charm and pulling me through the dungeons toward our common room.

"I'd rather not talk about it," I replied with another shiver. "Suffice it to say I think I need a shower."

Her eyes widened significantly and she stopped us, whirling me around to face her. "You didn't?" she asked, her eyes begging that I wouldn't tell her that I had done anything… unseemly with the older professor.

"Merlin, no!" I shouted, yanking my arm out of her grip. "What the hell do you take me for?"

She just chuckled with relief and shrugged. "It was just, what you said…"

"He tried," I admitted with a groan. "He even told me his bedchamber was always open to me."

"I would have loved to see that," she said with a laugh and grabbed me by the elbow and started pulling me along the corridor again.

"You could just say 'thank you' for letting you get away unscathed and drop it," I grumbled.

"Where would be the fun in that?" she asked and laughed again.

"I'm going to have so many nightmares," I groaned as I thought of the leering professor.

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Waiting for the potion to complete was excruciating, but finally the day arrived when I could confirm or deny the odd dream about my ancestors and a curse. We decided to take it at seven the next morning when all the other students would be on their way to breakfast.

When Shannon came into my room that morning I had already been wide awake for hours, unable to find sleep in my excited state.

"Do you have the potion?" I asked.

"Of course," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"I'm nervous," I admitted as she took a seat on the edge of my bed.

"You should be. This is dangerous, Draco, and part of me wants to dump it down the drain so that you can't hurt yourself," she replied.

"Hey! I had to endure being hit on by Snape for that potion," I announced defensively and took the potion vial from her hand. "It'll all be okay," I assured her.

"Remember what we talked about?" she asked. "You have to think of the time and place you want to be and then once you're done you have to get back here. You have until nine to get back into your body or else you'll be stuck forever," she warned.

"I know, mum," I replied as gently as I could muster after hearing the same lecture over a dozen times through the course of the previous two weeks.

She huffed and narrowed her eyes. "That means no Harry," she added and I laughed.

"Thanks. I was going to dally and get back right at the buzzer, but now I'll hurry," I replied and she stuck out her tongue.

"Well, I'll be right here when you wake up," she replied softly and gestured for me to drink the potion. "I hear it tastes retched," she warned.

"Don't they all," I teased and upended the vial into my mouth.

"It does taste retched," I told her as she gripped my hand. It tasted like someone had mixed bile with an herb-encrusted meat and it was all I could do to keep it down.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"A little tingly," I replied, poking at my limbs with my free hand.

"Draco?" she called a little louder that necessary.

"What?" I answered, but she wasn't looking at me, she was looking through me. Turning around I quickly realized that my body was still limp in my bed, eyes wide and staring blankly ahead, while I was floating just above it like a bad parlor trick. I tried to reach out and touch Shannon, but my hand went right through her like a ghost.

I laughed and spun, relishing in the feel of this new weightless body, but then my eyes trained on my beside clock and already ten minutes had passed, so I shut my eyes and started to concentrate on the room and the people from my dream.

It took a few attempts, but finally when I opened my eyes the room was different, ornate and luxurious and my ancestor's were there, Edward and Orion in a heated exchange of passion and their significant others watching from the doorway.

This time everything was much clearer that it had been in my dream and the scene on the bed made me squirm slightly as I thought about Harry.

"How long," Isabella whispered from the door, pulling me from my thoughts and it was exactly as it had been in my dream.

The men on the bed were startled away from each other and the exchange of words brought them closer together until by the time Stephanie began the curse, they we entangled together once more, as if magnets resided in their bodies and pulled them ever closer.

Stephanie's curse was as it was in my dream; her haunting voice filled the room with it.

"Every generation in the line of Potter and Malfoy will produce a single male heir and one alone. These heirs will have a cursed existence, bringing unneeded strife and even early death into their midst unless they follow their heart instead of the heritage and family laws pressed upon them. The heirs will only find peace with each other, and only then will their lives make sense and become fulfilled. Only then will the curse be broken."

The words flowed over me like warm silk and made my entire body tense with the excitement that Harry and I were destined to fall into our haphazard affair.

I shook the feeling off though and tried to pay attention, because what would come next had faded away in my dream, but now I would get to witness it.

"How can you place a curse on your own children?" Orion demanded, pulling a naked Edward to his feet but not relinquishing his hand.

"You brought this upon our families, not me," Stephanie replied haughtily.

"There's little point," Edward shrugged. "I'm simply going to inform our son of what you've done."

"Try," Stephanie replied in a singsong voice. "You won't be able to utter a word about it, not specifically anyway."

"You evil wench," Orion howled and launched himself at Edward's wife.

She evaded him easily and laughed as Edward restrained him against the bed. "Calm yourself," he soothed and he watched Orion's pallor return and his breathing steady.

"If Xavier chooses Leo and vice versa, all will be well in their lives, but if not, then their lives will be forfeit," Isabella told them reasonably, and much more calmly than I expected a mother to act. My mother could be cold, but she would never place a curse upon my head.

"You're both vile," Orion hissed. "These are your sons too, how could you condemn them?"

"We're leaving you and starting again," Isabella replied, speaking for both women. "These children were conceived out of deceit. Leo is no son of mine," she growled and left the room.

Stephanie followed, though she looked slightly more hesitant than Isabella had. "You won't be permitted to say a word to them," she reminded the couple, still nude and gaping by the bed, before she was gone.

The minute the door closed, Orion let out a vicious string of admonishments for their behavior. "What have we done?"

"We've broken our vows and they have taken their vengeance upon us," Edward replied. "I fear they knew our sons were more important to us than ourselves."

"But how could they? They have no reason to believe that Xavier and Leo will follow in our footsteps. What if they prefer a more suitable match?" Orion replied.

"More suitable? You think my Xavier wouldn't be suitable?" Edward growled.

"I think he'd be less suitable than a woman of high standing and magic," Orion answered honestly.

"So you think Isabella is more suitable than me?" Edward demanded.

"I married _her_ didn't I?" Orion spat, and I could tell from his face that he didn't mean it, he was just angry.

But clearly Edward was just as upset and stormed from the room with a flurry of obscenities directed at his lover.

After a moment Orion followed, but I didn't need to. It had to have been that moment that served as the catalyst in the Malfoy/Potter feud, as clearly Xavier and Leo had not broken the curse. Even if the men reconciled that night it would only be temporary.

History was very clear on that point.

So with stubborn bigotry the Malfoy's and the Potter's sentenced all their children for generation after generation to a terrible fate because of their hatred of one another. Had Harry and I been the first to break through it or had others before us tried? If not for the Time Turner I might have always seen Potter for what my family made him out to be; not good enough for a Malfoy.

I could have just as easily found a tortured existence and early death at the hands of my ancestors and the lies they handed down.

Pulling myself from my dreadful thoughts, I looked at the clock on the wall and started to panic, I had already been there for over an hour and had no idea how I would get back to my body. I paced the room looking frantically for a door or a rip in the air that might signal a passageway from this time back into mine.

It was then that I noticed that Edward had come back into the room and was looking right at me. Only something was off.

The clothing he wore was modern and familiar and he walked right up to me, as if he could see me, even though to him I shouldn't exist. But then I saw his eyes, the emerald green of damp Irish grass and I realized it wasn't Edward at all.

"Harry?" I asked, my frantic facade breaking at the sight of him smiling in front of me. Knowing now that I could be with him, _should_ be with him made my heart swell, but this image I had couldn't possibly be the _real_ Harry.

"You look like you might need some assistance," he teased, taking his arm and looping it through mine. I'm not sure why but I expected it to float through like a ghost would, but it didn't. It stuck and suddenly he was a solid warmth at my side.

"How?" I asked, not even knowing what I meant to say, but Harry seemed to know.

"I can feel you wherever you are, Draco. I'm always with you," he replied and pulled me toward the door to the hall.

Once in the corridor I recognized it as the manor right away. Oddly enough I hadn't known the room, but I made a mental note so that if I got back –_when_ I got back- I could find it again. Harry led me to my own room, a glossy white door with a silver inset, and then he stopped and turned to face me.

"We have to go inside," he told me softly and placed my hand on the doorknob.

I turned it, and the door burst open with a vicious crack and a brilliant white light. I squinted against it and pulled my arm up to ward off the brightness of it and all the while I could feel Harry pulling me into it.

The light began to fade and I opened my eyes to find myself inside Hogwarts once more, my own dorm even. Harry was still at my side and smiling gently as he walked with me toward a shimmering form on my bed, which I realized after a moment was actually me. My body looked like a dessert mirage, all blotches of color and heat waves until I moved closer.

I could see Shannon hovering over my body, clutching my hand and looking worriedly between my face and the clock on the bedside table. I only had a few minutes to get back inside my body before I was stuck in limbo forever.

Authors Note: Eek! I can't believe this story is almost over!


	12. A Turn for the Worst

***special alert- So I accidentally posted this before chapter 11, so the few of you who read this chapter last update, should go back and read 11. lol

Authors Note: Many many thanks to my beta Shannon (GothicBlackRose) for not only requesting this fic but also beta-ing it for me. Also, if anyone would like to know about updates and/or new projects you can find me on Facebook or my Yahoo Group (see my profile for details).

Chapter 12 A Turn for the Worst

Panic set in and my heart was racing faster than ever. The hands on the clock kept moving closer and closer to the mark that would mean it was too late for me to get back into my body, but I couldn't seem to make my limbs move to follow the clocks lead.

I could still see Shannon hovering over my corporeal body looking more and more concerned, but I had no clue what to do. I thought getting back would be enough, but clearly it wasn't.

It was nearly nine and I had exactly four minutes to get back into my body.

"What do I do?" I asked Harry, who was still a smiling presence at my side. He pushed a piece of my hair behind my ear and looked troubled as if he were trying to decide something.

"Do you want to go back?" he asked carefully, his brilliant eyes watching me closely.

"I need to go back," I told him. 'For us' I tried to tell him with my eyes.

After a moment it looked as though he had steeled himself into a decision and he let go of my arm, pushing me gently toward that shimmering form. When I touched it, my current body faded into the one lying on the bed like a ghost, but otherwise nothing felt any different.

"Lie down," Harry suggested and I nodded as I placed my more translucent form over the more tangible form on the bed. I tried to line everything up, make my posture and position match exactly, but still I felt nothing and I began to panic again.

Was it already too late? Had Shannon been mistaken about how long I had?

"Calm down," Harry soothed and walked over to stand above me, hovering just ahead of where Shannon was sitting unable to see either of us. I felt a sense of peace wash through me then, and knew that being in limbo wouldn't be too bad if I could be there with my Harry. Trouble was, it wasn't _my_ Harry, and I had to get back to the one I loved so that I could tell him what I'd found out about our future together.

"I love you, Draco. Always remember that," he whispered, his eyes glowing with otherworldly light and then he leaned in to kiss me.

It was like breathing air for the first time after having been underwater for hours. Harry's lips felt like warm blankets being wrapped around me and I pulled him closer, digging my fingers into his hair. Electricity coursed through me and it felt as if my heart was fluttering faster than it ever had before.

It was then that something felt off, different than it had before, and Harry started to pull away. I opened my eyes to see what the trouble was and found a sputtering and squirming Shannon on top of me, trying desperately to get away.

"Shan?" I called, confused and slightly hoarse.

"You're back!" she squealed. "Well, clearly your back, but I wasn't sure it was you, and then you tried to make out with me, and then-" Her words trailed off as she pulled me into a hug and then shoved me roughly away a moment later.

"Don't ever kiss me again," she ordered. "That was weird."

I laughed, louder than I had expected to and it seemed to surprise the both of us. "If it makes you feel any better I thought it was Harry," I offered.

"That explains the tongue," she replied with a crinkled nose. "Never again, I mean that once to warn off Pansy was one thing, I just pretended you were Jean Claude, but that," she sputtered slightly, "That was not cool. Never again," she reiterated and we both fell back into laughter.

"I thought you were going to be too late," she told me when our normal breathing had resumed.

"Me too," I admitted. "Then suddenly Harry was there and he showed me the way."

"Harry was there?" she asked skeptically. "I mean I know you said you thought I was him, but-"

"I'm not sure if it was really him, but it felt like him and looked like him and even sounded like him, so that's good enough for me," I replied, unable to wipe the silly grin from my face. "Everything is going to be fine now, Shan. I was right, the curse wasn't a dream it's real. Harry and I are meant to be together."

She smiled and ruffled my hair, to which I swatted her for messing it up. "I already knew that, but it's good that you finally believe me," she said.

I rolled my eyes and pulled myself out of bed. "Now I just have to tell Harry, though I have no idea how to contact him."

"I think I can help you with that, but first we need to get you some breakfast. The book said that you should eat right away," she told me, before I could protest that I wasn't hungry.

"Fine," I muttered and followed her from the room.

Soon I would be with Harry again and finally everything would make sense in my life.

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The common room was quiet as we made our way to breakfast. It was actually eerie how silent it was. Most often there were at least few students lingering who had studying to do, or just weren't very hungry, but not that morning.

It seemed even more odd in contrast to what we found as we rounded the corner of the dungeons leading up to the first floor. A bustling crowd of students cheering and setting off celebratory firework charms in the hall circled us and shouted various slanders and jeers before moving along and heading outside. Clearly they were happy about something, but what? There wasn't a big test I was aware of, or an extra Hogsmeade weekend being added to our schedules… at least I didn't think there was.

"What do you think is going on?" Shannon asked curiously as we spotted a second and then third group of irrationally happy Hogwarts students.

All I could do is shrug as I watched classmate after classmate run past me in a mirthful glow, though none of them Slytherin and most of them from the younger classes. It wasn't until I got to the Great Hall and saw the Slytherin table nearly empty and the long faces on several of the Gryffindor's that my heart froze up inside my chest and I gripped Shannon's arm roughly as a sense of dread fell over me.

Only one thing I could think of would bring that much cheer to everyone else and yet an equal dose of sorrow to these particular students.

"Go ask someone what's happened," I asked Shannon, and though she looked at me oddly, she finally nodded and headed off to the nearest table full of excitedly chattering Ravenclaw's.

I watched Shannon closely while the slight blonde she was talking to gaped in surprise at Shannon's question and then beamed at her as she recounted what to me felt like a _very_ long tale. I was too far away to hear what she said, but I could read Shannon's expression well enough.

At first she seemed pleased and at one point nearly beckoned me over, but then she held up her hand for me to stay back as the girl reached a part of the story that she clearly didn't want me to hear. The she asked the young Ravenclaw girl another question and Shannon seemed suddenly much less happy. After that the blonde looked down at the floor, her previous good mood shot down and Shannon looked over at me, her eyes filled with pain and tears.

In my mind I was running away; sprinting as fast as I could away from the news that I was afraid to hear. I knew what had happened, I knew it the very moment I saw the Gryffindor's faces. People like Neville Longbottom and the Weasley girl had never looked so grave, but I didn't want to hear it, didn't want it to be real.

In reality however, I was stuck, rooted to the spot like someone had cast a sticking charm on my shoes. All I could do was stand there as Shannon walked over with the horrible news that I didn't want to hear, didn't even want to consider.

Her hands were shaking as she pulled me into a tight hug. "Draco, I don't know how to tell you-" she began, but I cut her off with a harsh laugh. My sanity was quickly waning in the wake of what I now knew in my heart to be true.

"He's dead," I muttered. My mouth felt like it wouldn't work right. "He's dead isn't he?" I demanded.

She hesitated and then nodded against my shoulder. "Draco, I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "He fought Voldemort last night. He won, Draco. He killed him for good but… but his wounds were too much," she tried to explain.

"So it really was him this morning," I whispered, the thought coming unbidden to me at the realization that I had been with my Harry and given him up. "He was saying goodbye."

Shannon's hands clenched into my robes and she tried to pull me closer but my body wouldn't respond and stayed frozen in place. She let go a moment later and I could vaguely hear screaming beside me, but I was too dazed to make out any of the words. It was Shannon I knew, having been on the receiving end of enough of her anger I could recognize it even in my foggy state, but the other voice was a man's and I looked over to see a violent flash of red hair and then Ronald Weasley's face came into focus sharply.

"Get out of my way," he growled at Shannon, who was acting as a human barricade to keep him away from me.

"No. He's upset. You don't have the right to worsen it!" she screamed back at him.

"_I _don't have the right? Who the hell are you? I want to know why my best friend's last will and testament gives everything he owns to a sniveling ferret that he always hated!" he shouted.

"What?" I asked, confusion filling my mind and I was sure my face as well.

"Oh, that's gets your attention does it? Now that you hear you're about to be indecently rich, _now_ you can suddenly understand me?" Weasley spat.

"Ronald," Granger hissed from behind him, trying but failing to hold her boyfriend back and clearly displeased with the scene he was making in the middle of the Great Hall.

"What did you do to him? Did you cast some sort of dark magic on him? What the fuck did you do to my friend, Malfoy!" he screamed, his voice ringing so loudly that not a person in the hall, or perhaps even all of Hogwarts could have missed his words.

"He didn't do anything to Harry," Shannon defended. "Dammit, can't you see he's in pain?"

"Him? Why would he be in pain? Because his beloved Voldemort was killed, so what? My best friend is dead and I want some answers now!" Weasley yelled.

It hit me then, like the Hogwarts Express straight into my chest. It didn't matter what these people thought about me, I had been in love with Harry Potter and now he was ripped away from me like a favorite bear being torn from a child and thrown away and never to be seen again.

His warm strength and comfort beside me was gone, his all-consuming presence and charm was now emptied of him, and his loving touch and caress would be forever denied to me.

"I fucking loved him," I yelled, both my mind and mouth finally snapping.

There. It was out, clear as a bell for the entire world to hear, not that it mattered anymore.

Shock rang across the hall as eyes widened and all faces turned toward me. "We were supposed to be together. We were supposed to have our happily-ever-fucking-after and it all fell apart," I rasped and I could feel the first stirring of what might be tears flooding behind my eyes.

I had to go; I had to get out of there. I had made enough of an arse of myself and I didn't need the humiliation of sobbing in public to go along with it.

So I ran and this time it wasn't all in my mind. I could feel the hard stone floor under my trainers, I could hear the whistling flap of my robes as I moved, and I could sense Shannon trying to keep up with me but I didn't stop, didn't slow. I couldn't have even if I had wanted to, and I didn't want to.

At some point I made it back to the Slytherin common room, which was as empty as when we had left, and I collapsed on the floor in a fit of sobs so powerful that I didn't feel Shannon running her fingers through my hair in motherly comfort or even when she levitated me to her room.

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At some point during my grief I must have fallen asleep, and when I opened my eyes I vaguely recognized the bed hangings, but not the room. I sat up and found Shannon sitting at the far edge of the bed with a pile of parchment in her lap.

She looked distant and forlorn, but when I stirred she sat a bit straighter, though she still didn't look at me. "I should have given these to you a long time ago, but I had no idea. You have to believe me, Draco. If I had known what was going to happen you would have had these as soon as I received them," she whispered, holding out a stack of what I could now see was letters.

I took them, not sure why she looked so guilty until I saw the messy handwriting. I flipped through the letters and my heart shattered all over again.

They were all from Harry, every single one.

"I need to be alone," I whispered, and she nodded at once, leaving her own room to give me space.

Holding the first note reverently, I ran my fingers over each letter as if I could feel him through his writing. "Why did you write her instead of me?" I asked, wanting an answer but knowing I wouldn't get one.

I was wrong though. As soon as I opened the first parchment my question was answered.

'_I know this is probably the wrong thing to do, and you have every right to refuse me, but I have to know how he is. I love him so much; you have to believe that, Shannon. I'm sure you think I'm an arse for leaving, but it's the only way. _

_I have to kill Voldemort. It's my destiny and only I alone can accomplish it, and until I do that, there is no way for Draco and I to be happy together. _

_Please try and make him understand, or don't. I know you're his friend and not mine and I have no right to ask you to do anything for me, but I just hope you'll help him see that I'm doing all of this for him, for us. _

_Take care of him for me until I get back._

_HJP'_

The script was haphazard and crooked, but it was his, and the words on the page made my tears start to fall once more.

All were the same, every one of them simply checking in on my mood and my health and my general well being. At some point Shannon must have written him back and told him about my engagement, because he sounded heartbroken over it.

Things like '_If I'm late in my mission you have to stop him. It'll be a mistake if he marries her. She could never love him the way that I do_' seemed to conflict with other notes where he would say '_I love him and I only want happiness for him. If that means he marries his arranged bride, then so be it. I'll never stop loving him no matter what_', but the message was clear. Harry was a wreck over the thought of my marrying someone else.

The letters also told Shannon that he would be back any time now, that he was close to reaching his goal of defeating Voldemort, but clearly even _she_ didn't understand how close was 'close'.

It was impossible for me to get too angry with Shannon. She obviously thought she was protecting me by keeping the letters out of my site, but I was hurt by it just the same.

I heard the door creak open and heard Shannon come inside, but I didn't look over. "I'm still not feeling much like company," I told her softly.

"I can fully appreciate that Mr. Malfoy, but I thought you might be interested in something I have to show you," said a booming and jolly voice that was most certainly _not_ Shannon.

"Headmaster?" I asked, looking up and staring at the elderly wizard.

"Your friend told me where I might find you," he said, an odd twinkle to his eyes. He wasn't nearly as depressed looking as I had imagined he should be knowing that his beloved protégé was dead, but then maybe my father was right and the old man was merely using Harry as a weapon and never really cared for him at all.

The very thought of it made my blood boil, and I was near to throwing him out when he started to speak again.

"I heard you had a bit of a… tussle with Mr. Weasley this morning?"

I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Dumbledore to sugarcoat things. "You could say that. If you're here about the Will, he already told me, but I have no interest in Harry's money. Give it all to charity or something."

"Ah yes, Harry's Will. Yes, that gave us all a bit of a start, even me, which I must admit doesn't happen too often. You two were very careful it seems," he chuckled with a raised eyebrow. "But no, I don't think Harry would be too appreciative if we gave all of his money to charity."

I sighed and let my head fall back into the headboard of Shannon's bed. It stung for a moment but then I felt a cooling liquid sensation as Dumbledore soothed it with a quick wave of his wand. "Why did you do that?" I asked, not sure why it was worth the bother. Physical pain would be a welcome change to the emotional torment that was still wracking my body.

"You'll need a clear head for this, I think. Now if you wouldn't mind following me?" he said as he turned to leave, apparently just assuming that I would obey.

I did.

Not because he demanded it of me of course, but because I had nothing better to do and wallowing in self-pity wasn't going to bring Harry back.

"Is he really gone?" I asked, nodding to Shannon as we left the common room.

"Voldemort? Yes. He's truly gone this time. We all owe a dept to Harry. I'm very proud of him," he mused reverently. "You should have seen him, so strong, so powerful."

I winced, thinking of why I thought he was that way and the reasons Dumbledore mentioned it made me feel ill. Had no one else appreciated him for who he was as opposed to what he could do for them? I decided to let it drop though. There was no use getting into a 'tussle' with the Headmaster who would surely best me no matter what I did.

"Where are all the other Slytherin students?" I asked as we walked.

"Most have been taken out of Hogwarts by their parents. Now that the war has been decided, a great many things will change," he replied darkly.

"Did my father not ask for me?" I wondered out loud, a slight panic folding over me. Had he been hurt in the battle? Surely there were other casualties besides The Dark Lord and Harry. My father was closest to him, so it only made sense to reason that he might have been in the crosshairs of the damage.

Had Harry killed him? If so, could I muster the energy to hate him for it? Probably not when I don't think I could have hated him anymore than I already did for leaving me in the first place.

"You're father is in good health," Dumbledore noted, apparently guessing at my morbid thoughts, or perhaps he just read my mind, he was certainly capable of it. "He asked for you to come home later today. Your home has sustained much damage and he would like to have it cleared away before your arrival. I am to take you to him after our errand."

"And if I don't want to go?" I asked, halting and watching as Dumbledore's eyes lit up slightly.

"You would be welcome to return to Hogwarts and remain under my protection. Those who want my help need only ask for it, Draco," he told me. "But first things first, I have something to show you, and then you can make your decision."

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Side by side we made our way through the corridors, turning heads as we went. When we passed a flushed looking Weasley and Granger they didn't say a word, but merely looked down at the floor. Once outside the Headmaster held out his hand and I took it, letting him side-apparate us away from the castle, and my home and the last place I had seen Harry alive.

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Authors Note: So there is only one chapter left, are you ready?


	13. Broken

Authors Note: Again, thanks to Shannon (GothicBlackRose) for her request of this fic and her beta of it. I think this might be the first time I've had the same beta all the way through! This is the last chapter and though I'm sad to see this story go I have several others up my sleeve coming your way! Also, if anyone would like to know about updates and/or new projects you can find me on Facebook or my Yahoo Group (see my profile for details). If you haven't already, please check out Trophy and Becoming - my newest fics.

Chapter 13 Broken

I blinked my eyes against the harsh light of our destination and quickly realized Dumbledore hadn't brought us to where I had expected him to apparate us. I assumed we'd be off to Gringotts bank to work out the details of Harry's Will but instead we were standing in the bustling lobby of St. Mungo's Hospital. My heart sped up rapidly as the Mediwizards and ill patients moved around us. Was Dumbledore really so tactless as to make me see Harry's dead body? I might have wanted to see him again at some point, but it was far too soon, and in all honesty I preferred to remember him as he was.

Alive.

Could I bear to see the life gone from such a charismatic boy? Could I withstand the guilt at seeing him lying in the morgue and knowing he was there because he wanted to rid the world of an evil so that he could finally be with me? Maybe our relationship rushed him and he was too premature in fighting the Dark Lord, maybe he would have lived if only he had waited a year, or even a few months more.

I couldn't seem to get my jaw to work so that I could protest Dumbledore's plans. It felt as if my mouth was stuffed with cotton and my tongue couldn't move around it. When he took off down a side corridor at a brisk pace I followed him blindly, ready to shut my eyes at the first sign of thick black hair and a pale lightning bolt scar, there was nothing else I could do.

I'm sure my face betrayed my fear as I roamed the corridor beside the elderly wizard. It felt as if my pulse should be audible because it was beating so loudly and I was sure one of the passing mediwizards would spot the shimmer of sweat on my skin and think I had contracted an illness or perhaps had ingested one of the Weasley's notorious treats.

Maybe I had, I surely felt ill enough.

Finally we had arrived at an unmarked door, and before the Headmaster could open it I clamped my eyes shut. A moment later I was being led into the room and then shaken slightly. "Mr. Malfoy… Draco, I need you to open your eyes."

"No," I whined, unable to say anything else.

A soft chuckle reverberated around the walls and I wanted to slug the Headmaster for his joy in seeing me in pain. But then I felt the Headmaster shift beside me then heard him as he padded back over to the door. I wanted to reach out and force him take me from the room as well, but my limbs wouldn't respond to my brain's frantic shouting. "I promise there is nothing here to harm you," Dumbledore assured and then he was gone.

Didn't he think I knew that? Surely there was nothing a dead body could do to me; it didn't mean I wanted to look upon the remains of my deceased lover. Merlin knows what kind of condition he would be in after a vicious battle with an evil Dark Lord.

The room was eerily silent, silent like the dead and my whole body shuddered.

Finally I steeled myself and opened my eyes. They immediately trained onto the slight form on the only bed in the room. All I could see at first was dark messy curls and pale, nearly translucent skin. Then more details began revealing themselves as I continued to stare. It was like a train wreck, no matter how horrid I just couldn't pull my eyes away. He was mostly covered in blankets, but his face and neck were exposed. Harry had a split lip, and a deep cut along his brow, but otherwise he just looked exhausted.

I wanted to slap myself for the description. He didn't look tired he looked _dead_.

Except that he didn't.

My nerve endings went supernova as I crept closer and closer to the bed, close enough that I could see his thin chest rise and fall, barely, but steadily. I must have shouted the sheer joy and relief I suddenly felt, because Harry's eyes flicked open and those green orbs pierced me with slight confusion at first and then an unending warmth that I never wanted to look away from.

"They found you," he rasped, his voice scratchy and worn.

"Who?" I asked, and then shook my head. It didn't matter what he meant. Harry was alive and I was with him and all would be well from now on. I ran to him and pulled him to me until I realized that he was severely injured and then I nearly jumped back like I had been burned.

"Sorry," I told him, wincing from embarrassment and causing him pain.

"Draco Malfoy don't you _dare_ apologize for hugging me," he warned, his tone menacing.

I tried to laugh but it was almost forced. "I just-"

He shook his head, cutting off my words and reached for my hand. "Would you just get over here and kiss me, or I swear to Merlin I'll have the mediwitch _make_ you do it."

I did laugh then, letting the trauma and grief I had felt all morning fade away. A moment later and my lips had found Harry's, and though I tried to be easy with him, he would have nothing of it and instead he pulled me into a crushing kiss.

When we broke apart I searched his face for any sign that I might have hurt him, but I saw nothing there but relief and a contentment that I wasn't used to seeing on anyone, let alone Harry. Typically he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but then he just looked peaceful.

"I missed you," Harry whispered, threading his fingers through my own as our hands mingled on the bedspread.

"You should have stayed then," I offered, giving him the most withering gaze I could muster under the circumstances. Having the love of your life dead and then suddenly not dead will make you forgive them for a lot of nonsense, but I could still remember the cloying feeling of loneliness and hurt from when he left me. Forgiving and forgetting was not the same thing.

"You… you understand that I couldn't, right? I wasn't trying to be malicious, I just had to finish this war before we could be together again," he reasoned, his eyes pleading for me to understand.

All I could do was nod. I did understand, but that didn't make it hurt any less. But time heals all wounds, so they say, and if Harry stayed with me then I would have plenty of time to replace those feelings of betrayal with something more pleasant.

"I almost lost it when they said you'd died," I muttered, changing the subject. "I suppose they exaggerated a little," I added with a huff.

"No," he replied, looking concerned and tightening his grip on my hand. "They didn't."

I rolled my eyes and gestured to his perfectly animated face with my free hand. "Clearly they did. I mean you're pretty banged up, but dead feels a little different from what you're feeling right now."

"I know exactly what death feels like," Harry replied and removed his hand from mine so that he could open the robes that covered his chest. The pale skin there was riddled with deep cuts and purplish-green bruises. The cuts were still mending themselves, so quickly I could nearly see it happening right before my eyes, so they had to have been almost twice as deep if not deeper when he received them. Any one of them would have been fatal on anyone, even the great Harry Potter, but Harry had nearly a dozen crisscrossing his chest, which meant that there was no reason he should be talking to me right them.

"How-" I started to ask, but he closed the robe back and took my hand again.

"They said I was dead before they even got me here," he whispered, staring vacantly past me at something I couldn't quite see. "They tried everything to heal me but nothing worked because I was already too far gone."

"That's impossible, Harry. Once you're dead, you're dead. You must have just been unconscious or something," I replied, shaking my head in disbelief. I wouldn't believe it, couldn't.

Harry bit into his bottom lip and shook his head.

"Okay, let's say for the sake of argument, that you _were_ dead, then how are you sitting here talking to me now?" I asked petulantly. "You don't look like, sound like, or even _smell like_ an Inferi for that matter."

A cheeky grin spread across his face and he leaned over as if to whisper his great escape from death like a secret in my ear. "I got better," he said at last, and I rolled my eyes.

"You got better?" I replied, trying not to encourage him by laughing. "How?"

"I think you know," he replied, his eyes taking on a serious gleam that hadn't been there before.

It was then that I remembered my experience with the potion, and how it was Harry who had pulled me back to my body. I remembered our kiss exactly what it felt like and it all fell into place. With a gasp I stared at him in horror. "Did they tell you what time it was when you got - 'better'?"

"It was one minute before nine this morning," he replied and nodded to confirm what I had deduced from his previously cryptic words. "You remember don't you? You remember me getting you back to your body and-"

"Kissing me," I finished, my fingers going automatically to my lips as if I could still feel the residual tingle from it and Harry nodded.

"Dumbledore said I had been dead for hours and then I just started breathing again," he said, sounding as if it was hard for him to believe as well.

"But you were only there for a short time," I protested, recalling the exact moment I had spotted him and thinking it was Edward.

"It took me awhile to find where you had gone, but I had been watching you since before you even took the potion, that's how I knew what to do. I knew you had to get back into your body or else you'd be stuck. Though to be honest-" he began, but then looked bashfully away.

"What?" I asked, pulling his face back toward me.

"It's terrible and selfish I know, but part of me wanted you to stay so that I could be with you. I had no idea that I would come back too. I thought I was letting you go forever," he whispered, a deep sadness in his eyes.

"I almost stayed on my own just because it was so comfortable and I missed being near you," I admitted. "But I didn't think it was really _you_. I thought my mind had made you up just to get me out of there."

He chuckled and pulled me onto the bed with him in a movement swifter than I thought he would be capable in his current condition. "It all worked out," he mused.

I kissed him, pouring all of the relief and yearning I felt at being with him again into it. "It worked out even better than you know," I told him when we broke apart. "We really are supposed to be together, it's our destiny."

"I heard," Harry chuckled. "I suppose it's much better than some of the other things I've been destined for."

"What do you mean you heard?" I asked, taken slightly off guard.

"I was there, remember? It took me awhile to find you, but I heard most of what happened," he replied. "_A curse on both your bloodlines_," he recited in a mock seer voice that sounded suspiciously like Trelawney.

"Oh," I pouted, having wanted to recount the tale for him.

He smiled at me and leaned his head on my shoulder. "What I don't understand is how you knew to go exactly there. I mean, you mentioned a dream to Shannon when you took the potion, but then while I was trying to find you I heard her grumbling about a broken Time Turner."

I blushed; I knew I was because I could feel the heat crawling up my neck. "About that… I might owe Granger an apology."

Harry narrowed his eyes and shook his head knowingly. "I think it might be best left unsaid then. It's going to be hard enough to get her and Ron to accept you as my boyfriend."

The grin that erupted on my face couldn't be helped. "Boyfriend?" I inquired.

"For now," He replied.

"Do you think they'll ever be okay with it? Weasel and Granger, I mean?" I asked.

"You might want to start calling them Ron and Hermione, but yeah. They'll come around to the idea. Dumbledore told me he gave them quite the shock when he pulled them into his office to go over my Will," he said with a chuckle.

"You could say that. It nearly got me a beating in the middle of the Great Hall. You should warn a guy when you're planning to make him your sole benefactor," I chastised.

"I couldn't run the risk of you offing me for the payday," he teased.

I merely rolled my eyes because a statement like that didn't warrant a reply. With a yawn I curled back up against him and we just stayed silent for a while. It was warm and comfortable, just being able to lie there and hold him again.

"You lied to me about the Malfoy journals," Harry said softly and suddenly, breaking the silence and at my confused look he elaborated. "That first day by the lake when we were both invisible. You told me you knew about our ancestors because of some journals you read from the Malfoy library."

"Guilty," I admitted. "In all fairness what I did is not nearly as bad as you leaving me _or _dying," I countered.

"I suppose you have me there," he replied with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Though if we're keeping score, _you_ got engaged _and_ you risked your life with that potion behind my back."

I gaped, it was all I could muster after he blindsided me with that. "You _left _me, and you _actually_ died! That is so much worse than what I did," I retorted, pursing my lips and challenging him to deny it.

"You already said that," he replied with a grin.

"You're insufferable, did you know that?" I asked, trying not to give in and smile myself.

"So I've been told," he muttered and pulled me into another kiss. "Do you think you can put up with me for a few dozen years? I mean, it _is_ our destiny to be together after all. It's not as if we have a choice in the matter," he teased.

I laughed. "I suppose I could suffer through it, so long as you only live to about a hundred and fifty or so, after that we might need to renegotiate."

"Deal," he replied, holding out his hand to shake.

I rolled my eyes and took his hand only to pull him against me in another kiss. As our bodies fell together I knew that there was no place I would rather be.

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Twenty Years Later

"You're insufferable," I called out over the din in the kitchen.

A mass of Malfoy's, Weasley's and various other friends were gathered in the next room, all waiting to be fed a delicious New Year's meal, and Harry was still adjusting the apron he had made me wear. I wasn't even doing any of the real cooking- that was still being done by the house elves. I was merely attempting to _look _like he had prepared the meal ourselves so as not to hear Hermione rant about House Elf Equality all night.

"One of these day's you are going to have to come up with something more original to call me, but I'm not holding my breath," Harry teased.

I rolled my eyes and looked down at the green apron that said 'Harry's' in scrolling silver script. To his credit, Harry was wearing a red apron with gold letters that said 'Draco's', but still it was a silly thing. It had seemed funny an adorable when we got them, but that was when we used them for cooking breakfast and wore nothing underneath. Now, here in front of my parents, Shannon and an entire clan of Weasley's it only seemed mortifying.

"They'll all think it's cute, swear," Harry assured me, but I shook my head.

"That's what I don't want them to think! Malfoy's are not cute!" I protested and pouted playfully.

"This one is," Harry replied with a smile as he pinched my cheek like a least favorite Aunt might do.

"Can we get this over with?" I asked and he nodded sweetly and patted me on the bum as we left the kitchen, each of us levitating several trays laden with food into the dining room. I tried to strategically hide my apron with the platters of food, but when I looked down it was no longer there.

Harry winked when I peeked back at him and I laughed. Leave it to Harry to get me to concentrate on something more trivial when I would have otherwise been obsessing over the crowd of nearly fifty people waiting to eat.

He knew me so well.

Our normally small and cozy dining room had been stretched and transfigured to allow room for the nearly thirteen meter long table needed to fit all our guests. At one end were the two side-by-side empty chairs for Harry and I and then our four children, Orion, Edward, Stephanie and Isabella. Across from them were Shannon, Jean Claude and their two girls MacKenna and Gabrielle. The eldest of her girls, MacKenna, was dating Orion and they kept gazing bashfully across the table at one another. The younger still thought boys were icky.

Next to them were Hermione and Ron and their ever growing brood, going on six with Hermione's latest pregnancy. The rest of the Weasley clan filled the remainder of that side of the table and part of the other, where my parents sat, closest to our children.

They were ever the doting grandparents, spoiling our children rotten at every opportunity. Our youngest, Isabella, who was now in her third year of Hogwarts, still stayed at the manor for two full weeks out of every summer vacation because she got to do whatever she wanted.

When we set the platters on the table, Harry looked over and beamed at me as he took my hand.

"We'd like to thank you all for joining us here today as we celebrate the end of another wonderful year and the beginning of new and exciting adventures. We love you all and can't wait to see what's in store for our beautiful families in the coming months. May will find Orion and MacKenna graduating and maybe more," Harry added with a wink toward our son, to which Orion groaned whined a quiet and petulant 'dad'.

"September will find Edward in his final year of Hogwarts, Steph in her fifth and Bella in her fourth. We couldn't be prouder of our children," he announced warmly and there was a nod of agreement along the entire table.

"We'll miss Lucius and Cissy as they tour America next year, but I'm sure Molly will do a little extra spoiling of the kids on your behalf until you return," he laughed and Molly nodded with a glowing smile.

"Not too much I hope," Cissy called back. "I would like them to notice we're gone at least."

As the guests laughed and chatted amongst themselves, I wrapped an arm around my Harry and pulled him close. "I love you," I whispered against his ear and he blushed slightly.

"I love you, too," he replied with a gentle kiss on my cheek, a promise, I knew, for more to come later.

We gazed over our happy family and smiled contentedly, knowing for a fact that we had broken the curse placed upon our heads long before we were born and that we would have our happily-ever-after, after all.

FIN

Authors Note: Yes I'm fully away of the Twilight references, they were intentional. lol. With so many of my current projects coming to a close I'm starting to prepare a few new things, a couple of them as I mentioned before have been posted already, but I have at least 3 other projects in the works to fill in some of the gaps. I'm thankful to all of my loyal readers who follow through each journey with me and I look forward to entertaining you all again very soon.


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